


Seventy-One

by Anogete



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-15 06:02:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 65,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anogete/pseuds/Anogete
Summary: Nightmares drive Darcy to the seventy-first floor of Stark Tower. She finds peace, quiet, and coffee there early in the morning. She also happens to find Bucky Barnes. (This is a slow burn fic, so don't you go thinking you're getting smut out the gate.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in this fandom, so go somewhat easy on me. :-)
> 
> The tale doesn't really follow a canon timeline, but I hope you'll be able to suspend your disbelief so I can indulge my desire to tell a romantic, dialogue-heavy view into the mind of Darcy and how she meets Bucky in my imagination. The fic is completed and is 14 chapters—about 65,000 words or 160 pages long. I'll post chapters as quickly as I can get them beta'd and finalized. The song quotes at the beginning of each chapter come from my own personal playlist for this fic. If anyone is interested, I can create a playlist on YouTube.
> 
> Some nice folks invited me to Tumblr when I originally asked for a beta two or three weeks back. I still don't know how to use Tumblr and can't think of anything to post even if I could work it. But I would love to stalk you if you want to provide me with your user ID. Mine is: [physical conversation](https://physicalconversation.tumblr.com). If you leave a comment, add in your username and I'll hunt you down and creep on you.

**CHAPTER 1**

> _“I know exactly who you could be. Just hold on, we’re going home. It’s hard to do these things alone.” - Hold On We’re Going Home (ASTR / Drake)_

It wasn’t that she couldn’t sleep. Well, maybe that _was_ it.

She actually had no problem falling asleep. Most nights that happened within a minute of her head hitting the plush pillow. The pillow that, along with the luxurious bed sheets, was probably carefully selected by the impossibly perfect Pepper Potts. The problem seemed to lie in the nightmares, Darcy supposed. Some of them she could remember—running, being chased, getting caught up in a battle she was ill-equipped for, aliens, black holes, whatever. Mostly she just woke up in a cold sweat with her heart racing and that feeling of unease and creeping terror clouding her mind.

Lying in bed just made her more anxious, so she’d started cracking the window in her living room and sitting by to pull in the fresh air. She’d never in her wildest dreams think that accepting the job as Jane’s intern would lead to an all-expenses-paid apartment in Stark Tower. Life was surreal, what with all the superheroes and free living quarters.

When the weather started to turn colder and the leaves shifted from green to yellow, orange, and red, she began pacing the hallways. At first she walked the halls on just her floor and then moved on to the three floors above. During this time of night everyone seemed to be asleep and she rarely encountered another resident. She didn’t branch out beyond her pacing of the halls until after she’d started working directly for Tony just before Thanksgiving.

Tony was a smug dick with an ego the size of his building and little regard for other people’s feelings. On the surface. As much as he flapped his lips and cracked his jokes, he had a heart of gold underneath all that bullshit he spewed. Darcy saw right through him because she saw herself in him. All that bravado and devil-may-care when really he just wanted everyone to be okay. She respected that, and he seemed to appreciate that she let all his tantrums just slide right off her back. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how to work with self-absorbed workaholics. Hello, Jane.

Assisting Tony—being his Girl Friday, if you will—came with perks; an obscene salary, a shitload of freedom, a swag pad in Stark Tower even after Jane gallivanted off to Asgard for “research”, and unrestricted access to the private floors that housed the ridiculously attractive and disgustingly heroic superheroes. At least they did when those superheroes weren’t on missions out of the country, saving lives and all that jazz. She’d met all of them, mostly coming or going from Tony’s office. She had her own little office adjacent to his and the only time she’d embarrassed herself was when she spilled a coffee on Bruce Banner in the hallway.

Because she had the run of the place, she’d found a common room on the seventy-first floor. One wall was composed completely of windows with a killer view of the city. A kitchenette was tucked away in the far corner, but most of the massive room was filled with oversized sofas and chairs. A row of bookshelves lined part of the wall next to the gas fireplace. No one was ever there, especially in the early hours of the morning. So she often found herself her pacing the floor in front of the windows or curled into a chair with a cup of coffee in her hand, watching the sky shift from black to a bruised blue to a softer cornflower blue that eventually was broken up with orange when the sun started rising. The sun was her cue to return to her apartment before she ran the risk of running into someone.

Tonight’s nightmare was elusive. Darcy couldn’t remember anything beyond fear and the sensation of being out of control. Her feet took her through the halls of the sixty-fourth floor and into the elevator. A few seconds later she was in the comforting familiarity of what she’d begun to consider her room. She sat on the kitchen counter, her feet dangling off the floor, while she waited for the pot of coffee to brew. It was just past three in the morning and the city outside the windows was lit with cold white lights or glaring red ones. Darcy felt alone.

The footsteps outside the wooden door made her heart jump into her throat. She watched with shock as the knob turned and the door opened tentatively. A man in a pair of grey sweatpants and a white long-sleeved shirt entered, his eyes shifting over the seating area next to the windows. It wasn’t until he’d closed the door softly behind himself that she realized he hadn’t seen her. The kitchenette was tucked away in the back corner and dark. The only lights were the recessed spotlights over the seating area and they were dimmed to almost nothing because she preferred it that way.

Darcy couldn’t make out his face, but he seemed ill at ease, uncomfortable and wary. He walked over to the windows and stood with his back to her. She didn’t want to startle him, opening her mouth multiple times to let him know about her presence, but not knowing what to say.

The coffee maker beeped to indicate it was finished, and it made her jerk in surprise. Before she could say anything, he said, “I know you’re there.”

Of course. A new superhero recruit? Without getting down from the counter, she leaned over and lifted the coffee pot, pouring the liquid gold into a mug. “Do you want any coffee?” she asked.

He turned around and all she saw were wide shoulders, narrow waist, a five o’clock shadow covering his strong jawline, and shoulder-length hair falling around his face. She was sure she’d never seen him before. She would have remembered him. “Yeah.” He had his arms crossed over his chest.

Darcy reached behind her to open the cabinet beside her head and pull out a second mug. “Cream or sugar?” she asked.

“Black,” he answered, edging his way around the sofa, but not coming any closer.

“A man after my own heart,” she said, the words tumbling over her lips with so little thought. Just like most things she said. She was more like Tony Stark that she was willing to admit.

The comment seemed to make him uncomfortable judging by the tension in his body. Or maybe that was due to the fact that she’d jumped down from the counter and was carrying the two mugs over to him. The closer she got, the more his body coiled as if he was readying himself. She should have been more concerned, but all she could really think about was how hot he was. The hair and the scruff on his face and that body and those fucking eyes that were shooting intensity at her.

Darcy stopped about five feet from him and extended one of the mugs. “I’m Darcy.”

After a long moment of consideration, he uncrossed his arms and wrapped his fingers around it. “Thank you.”

“What’s your name?”

He hesitated, his lips thinning out, making him look unhappy and strained. “It’s not important.”

She laughed softly. “Sure, it is. What do I call you?”

“Nothing.” He took two steps back from her before turning and walking over to the window.

“Ooooo-kay,” she said, lifting her brows and moving around the sofa. She approached the wall of windows from the other side so as not to crowd him. Darcy stood there and watched the sky start to lighten. It was a subtle thing, something she loved watching, though she’d never done it with someone else before. Mystery man seemed content to watch with her, but made no attempt to strike up conversation. That was fine with her. She hadn’t really been in the market for chit-chat either.

Darcy finished her cup of coffee and dared a glance at tall, dark, and broody. He must have felt her gaze because he turned his head and looked over at her. She dropped her eyes to the floor guiltily.

His footsteps on the hardwood floor and the ornate area rug—no doubt another Pepper Potts exclusive—were soft, probably because he didn’t have shoes on. Darcy focused on the street lights a few blocks away as they went from green to red, listening for the click of the door opening and closing. Instead of that, she heard and sensed movement behind her.

Looking over her shoulder, she found mystery man a couple yards away, standing between two plush armchairs with the pot of coffee in his hand. He extended it out to her and she turned to offer her mug. Darcy watched as he carefully filled it before retreating back to the kitchen. She stepped over and settled into a chair by the fireplace that gave her a view of the window, curling her legs up beneath her. She wondered what tall, dark, and broody thought of her completely unsexy turtle pajamas.

He came into view with his own—presumably refilled—cup of coffee and tentatively settled into the armchair furthest from her and closest to the door. They sat in silence, sipping coffee for several long minutes. Finally, he said, “I used to come here before you,” in his rough voice.

Darcy looked at him over the rim of her mug. “Sorry?” she asked, before taking another sip.

“You’ve been coming here for two months,” he stated.

After a moment of consideration, she agreed with him. “Yeah. Since late December. Have you been stalking me?”

“No,” he said brusquely. He seemed irritated at her. That rankled Darcy.

“I didn’t mean to kick you out, you know. You can always come in. Do you want me to find another room to run away from my nightmares in?” Her tone was waspish, bitter, unlike her. She wasn’t on her A game at four-thirty in the morning after shitty sleep filled with vague nightmares.

The bite in her words seemed to knock him back on his proverbial heels. He took a drink of coffee. Darcy watched the muscles in his throat contract as he swallowed. “Didn’t seem like you wanted company,” he conceded after another long moment of silence.

She turned her gaze to the window. “That’s not entirely true.” Darcy wasn’t even sure what she meant by her response, but he seemed to accept it, nodding his head once when she looked back at him. “Sounds like you’re the one who didn’t want company.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, tipping the mug back and drinking the rest of his coffee. He abruptly stood and deposited the mug in the sink before walking stiffly to the door and leaving without a backwards glance.

Whatever, Darcy thought, rolling her eyes. Why were the hot guys always jerks?

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Two nights later she woke up in another cold sweat with her stomach churning over some imagined danger. Darcy took two deep breaths to slow the pounding of her heart before throwing her legs over the edge of the bed and standing up. In the soft glow of her bathroom nightlight she pulled her hair into a ponytail and splashed cold water on her face. In just her pajamas—a pair of purple cotton shorts and matching short-sleeve shirt—she slipped out of her apartment and walked the hallways of her floor twice before riding the elevator up to the next floor and making two laps around it.

On the ride up to the floor above, she whispered, “Fuck it,” and punched the button for seventy-one. Some jerk wasn’t going to keep her from enjoying her coffee. Wasn’t going to stop her from finding her peace while watching the sun come up above New York City. She hadn’t really been expecting him, but there he was when she opened the door. He’d left the lights dimmed like she liked. He was standing by the coffee maker, his arms crossed over his chest and his hip resting against the edge of the counter.

Pulling in a deep breath, she pushed her shoulders back and walked across the room to the kitchenette. He didn’t budge an inch while she stepped up next to him and pulled two mugs out of the overhead cabinet. She felt his eyes tracking her, following her movements while she sat the mugs down on the counter. She wanted to fill the silence with words, but wasn’t sure what to say. And, honestly, she didn’t want to turn her brain on yet, didn’t want to let the flow of perky chatter tumble out of her when she was feeling anything but. He seemed content with just the sound of the coffee trickling into the pot.

Mirroring his stance, she crossed her arms and leaned her hip into the counter. When she dared a glance from the coffee pot to him, his eyes were on her bare legs. The shorts were just that—short. They fell a few inches above mid-thigh. His tongue rolled out to wet his bottom lip before his eyes moved back to the coffee pot. Fuuuuuck, she thought, tearing her eyes from his mouth and focusing on the counter by his hip. He had nice lips. Really nice lips.

The coffee maker beeped and he pulled the pot out to fill her cup and then his. That done, he picked his mug up and walked past her to take up his spot in front of the windows across the room. Darcy took her time tracing the lines of his body from the back. His build reminded her of Captain America. She’d had the pleasure of meeting him twice and he was disgustingly handsome and polite. And so far out of her league that it had surpassed depressing to being just plain funny.

She crossed the room and settled down into her chair. A few moments later, he joined her, again sitting in the chair furthest from her. They drank their coffee in silence.. Darcy got up a few moments later to retrieve the pot and refill both their cups. He watched her with those cold eyes, but didn’t stay a word. She didn’t have anything to say either, so they polished off the pot without a word exchanged. He left before the sun crested the horizon.

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Darcy didn’t know if he was there every night, but he was there every night she couldn’t sleep. So, two or three nights a week, she spent a couple hours in silence with tall, dark, and broody. And she’d rather die than admit that she spruced up her bedtime wardrobe for him. No more fuzzy pants with hot pink pigs on them. No more old ratty shirts with mystery stains. She even sprung for silk matching sets from Victoria’s Secret. They weren’t exactly her style, but he was hot and she felt like she could at least try to look like a reasonably put-together human being. He didn’t seem to care, though. Sometimes she’d catch him looking at her legs or her chest, but the glances were fleeting and he was still impassive, difficult to read.

After a month, she asked Tony who the guy with the longish brown hair who frequented the lounge on seventy-one was. Seventy-one was a restricted floor, so she figured he’d know anyone with access to it. Tony had raised his brows and asked why she wanted to know. Darcy had shrugged and said that she’d run into him a few times while making coffee in the mornings, but he wouldn’t tell her his name.

“Might want to stay away from him,” Tony had said before rolling his stool over to the motor he was working on. The glare of the lights off his safety goggles had hid the look in his eyes from her.

“Why?” she’d asked.

“He’s a grump,” Tony had responded, igniting the blowtorch and dismissing her with a nod.

It came as a shock when, after a particularly bad nightmare, she’d made her way upstairs to find an empty room. The coffee machine was off and the lights were extinguished. She lifted the switch to turn them on the lowest setting and cast her gaze over the room. For the first time in over five weeks, he wasn’t there with a pot of coffee and those gorgeous eyes.

She felt empty as she dumped the coffee grounds into the filter and set the machine to brew. And then she felt annoyed at herself for even caring. He never spoke to her—was barely tolerant of her—so she really didn’t see why it should matter if he was there or not. Despite that, she left an empty mug on the counter for him just in case.

He never showed up, though. She drank almost the entire pot herself before putting away the unused mug shortly after seeing the warm orange glow seep out of the horizon. Going back to her room, she showered and ate a bowl of cereal before dressing for work. The nice thing about being Tony’s assistant was that he didn’t give a shit what she wore. She was a behind-the-scenes employee so she could wear leggings and an oversized sweater without catching any flak from H.R.

“Why the sour puss, Lewis?” Tony asked when she walked into his lab and dropped a pile of fan letters on the table.

“Why the talking before ten in the morning, Tony?” she shot back.

“Testy, testy. You miss your boyfriend this morning?”

She jerked her head up to look at him. “What?”

“Your early morning coffee rendezvous,” Tony clarified, wiggling his brows.

Darcy rearranged the pile of mail. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

After a long moment of silence, Tony relented. “He’s out on a mission.”

“He’s an agent?”

Tony shrugged. “Ehhhh, not really. He’s with Star-Spangled Underwear.”

The comment almost knocked Darcy back on her heels. He was with Captain America? Who the fuck was he, then? “What’s his name?”

Tony picked up the mail and flipped through it. “If he wanted you to know that, he would have told you.”

“Fuck you, Tony,” she snapped at him before turning to leave.

“Love you too, Lewis,” he called after her.

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The next day she woke up at three thirty in the morning, but not because of a dream. Normally she would have closed her eyes and drifted back off to sleep, but that morning she pushed herself out of a bed, made her hair presentable, and rode the elevator to seventy-one. The room was empty again.

A late March snowstorm had hit the city overnight and everything was blanketed in white. The reflection of the city lights off the snow lit the night sky. She went through the motions, put the coffee on, sat out two mugs. The second stayed on the counter, unused while she watched the already blue sky fade into a washed out gray. The sun couldn’t break through the heavy cloud cover.

She went back to her room and showered, ate, dressed. Lather, rinse, repeat. Tony had a press conference today and she needed to make sure he was dressed and there on time. The man was too much like Jane, which probably worked in Darcy’s favor.

She went to bed early that night and woke again from her dreamless sleep just after three o’clock. After lying in bed for fifteen minutes, she pushed herself up and rode the elevator to seventy-one. Empty again.

Coffee, two mugs, one inhabitant. No company. She’d enjoyed this ritual before him, but somehow she didn’t enjoy it as much after him. Her sleepless nights were suddenly divided. Before him and after him. It bothered her more than a little.

The next night she had a horrible dream about being chased by two men with wild, feral eyes. They had hatchets and murderous intent. She’d locked herself in a building, but they were beating on the glass doors with a shovel. Just as the glass shattered, she jerked awake and sat up, heart thumping.

Running a shaky hand over her face, she slipped out of bed and pulled her hair into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. Her stomach was still clenched in anxious, irrational fear when she walked into the lounge on seventy-one and found the lights off. Where was he? Had he stopped coming because of her? Was he still out with Steve Rogers? Who the fuck was he? Why did he make these mornings easier when he did nothing but sit there and ignore her?

She spilled the grounds all over the counter while she went through the motions of making coffee. After the pot finished brewing, she took her mug over to the window and watched the city. Most of the snow was still piled up on the edges of the roadways. The sky was still that washed out, deep blue that happened when light pollution bounced off the snow. Everything looked cold and distant. She missed Jane. She missed her old life of carefree bouncing around with her best friend. Forcing Jane to eat dinner while they set up telescopes. Learning how to read the strange instruments that astrophysicists use to gather data. It all seemed so removed from her life now.

Not that she had room to complain. Her paycheck was fat and her apartment was nicer than she could have ever dreamed of back in school. Her boss was chill as fuck and she was safe. Or at least she felt that way with the building security and all her super-powered acquaintances like Tony and Thor. Even Bruce had struck up a casual friendship with her after he got over the whole coffee-on-the-shirt thing. He, too, was like Jane. Maybe that was just her lot in life—to befriend all the science nerds and baby them. At least Tony paid her for the privilege.

It was going to be another grey day without much of a sunrise. Just after five o’clock, she dumped the last of the coffee and returned his empty mug to the cabinet shelf.

Shower, eat, dress. She’d opened all of Tony’s mail by seven. The junk mail went in the trash. The fan letters—of which there were many—were stacked up and secured with a rubber band. She was sure Tony read them after she left him alone even though he claimed he didn’t. The business inquiries were divided up and forwarded to the appropriate departments with the exception of a few she gave to Tony himself.

“Is he okay?” she asked her boss when she walked into his office at nine-thirty that morning.

Tony looked up from his tablet. “Who? Your boyfriend?”

“Ha ha. You’re so funny,” she said in her deadpan voice. “Is he okay?”

Tony grinned. “Yeah, he’s okay. You sweet on him, Lewis?”

“No,” she replied, a bit too hastily, she had to admit. Before Tony could switch his knowing grin into a snarky reply, she turned her back on him and marched out into the hall.

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The next morning she woke with a start from a dream that involved her being sucked up into a wormhole. Or maybe it was down into a wormhole. Either or. Didn’t matter. It fucked up her head and she immediately got out of bed. The sheets were twisted around her legs, almost tripping her up. She pulled her hair into a messy, haphazard ponytail before walking out into the hall barefoot. She needed to get out of her apartment. Sometimes the place felt so claustrophobic and lonely.

The elevator dinged as she arrived on the seventy-first floor. She’d given up hope on him being there, resigned to spending these early morning hours alone like she’d been doing for so long before him. Except when the door open, the lights were dimmed and she could smell freshly brewed coffee. She cast her eyes around and found him standing by the window, his back to her. His shoulders seemed tense.

She padded over to the kitchenette and saw the empty mug sitting by the almost-full coffee pot. Darcy poured herself a cup and made her way over to the wall of windows, standing on the other side of the room. When she took her first sip of coffee, she saw him glance over at her out of the corner of her eye.

“Hi,” Darcy offered, breaking weeks of silence between the two of them.

He nodded at her, his blue eyes steady on her face. “Hi,” he answered. His voice sounded rough from disuse. It wasn’t until then that she saw the cut on his lip and the bruising on his cheekbone.

“What happened?”

He raised his eyebrows in question.

“Your face. The cut and bruise,” she clarified.

“It’s nothing. Be gone in a day.”

She waited a moment before saying, “That isn’t an answer to my question.”

He shrugged and turned back to the view of the city.

“I have nightmares,” she told him. As soon as it was out of her mouth, she regretted saying anything.

He looked over at her again and blinked.

In for a penny, in for a pound. She continued with, “It’s hard to sleep sometimes and I like it here—in this lounge. It’s quiet and comfortable.”

“It is,” he agreed, his eyes looking out the window instead of at her.

She sipped the rich, warm coffee. He made it strong and she liked that. Coffee always tasted better when someone else made it. His was especially good, but that was probably just all in her head.

Darcy walked over to her chair and sat down. Closing her eyes, she took a couple more sips, savoring the bitterness of the drink. It was a taste she had acquired during her sophomore year of college and her addiction to it had gone beyond a need for caffeine. It was a ritual now, a comfort. When she opened her eyes again, he was sitting across from her in his chair. He was at least four yards away from her, probably more, but it felt intimate. The only thing between them was the gorgeous oriental rug—deep red with blues and golds, a black border with a detailed cream pattern marking the edges.

He was watching her over the rim of his mug. His black long-sleeved T-shirt hugged his upper body, showing off his chest to great advantage. The dark grey sweatpants were just the slightest bit tight around his thighs. Sometimes she got the feeling he knew exactly how good he looked and other times she would swear he was completely oblivious, too inside-his-own-head to know.

“Tony said you were on a mission,” she said.

“I was,” he agreed.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

He nodded and tipped the mug back to drink. Darcy watched his throat constrict as he swallowed. It made her swallow, too.

She was burning to ask him about the mission, but he seemed unwilling to discuss it. Instead, they sat in silence for the rest of the morning, and it was more comfortable than Darcy had remembered. It felt... right. Better than sitting here by herself during those nights he was gone. She’d never been one to hold her tongue, letting whatever was running through her brain come right out her mouth. He made her feel like that wasn’t necessary. Like she could sit there and just let her presence be enough.

Just before sunrise, he put his mug in the sink and slipped out the door like he’d never been there at all. Darcy rinsed her mug and the empty coffee pot before retreating back to her room to get ready for the day.


	2. Chapter 2

> _“Are you really gonna stand there staring at me all the way from across the room? - Fruit (Abra)_

Darcy was wearing four layers if you counted her bra. She counted her bra because it was one of those big sports ones that covered the top half of her body. It didn’t provide the support that underwire did, but it was more comfortable and good enough beneath a T-shirt, a chunky sweater, and her heavy winter coat. She had leggings on under her jeans and two pairs of socks beneath her boots. And she was still freezing her ass off as she pulled a wool winter cap down over her ears and pushed against the freezing March wind whipping between the tall skyscrapers of Midtown.

She’d spent the morning running errands for Tony. Dropping off a signed contract to an attorney, delivering a check to a real estate developer, and—her current and last task—purchasing cannoli from a tiny bakery that Tony loved. She didn’t mind the menial tasks because they got her out of the building. Some days she didn’t leave if things were busy. The good news was that the cafeteria on the third floor served a mean open-faced turkey sandwich with gravy.

She had the box of cannoli and was raising her hand to hail a cab when the first shot was fired. It was such a strange sound to hear in the day in the middle of Midtown that she didn’t comprehend what was going on until the second shot. The concrete at her feet exploded into powdery chunks. Darcy dropped the box of cannoli and stumbled back, curling in on herself in hopes she would be a smaller target. A black car screeched to a halt just a few yards up the block, it’s front tire running up onto the curb. Two men got out, both with black handguns made obscenely long with silencers threaded onto the barrels.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath, turning to run the opposite direction. Suddenly there was gunfire everywhere, from all directions. She didn’t know if she was at the center of it or just caught on the edges of the firefight. Covering her head with her hands—like that would help—she ran down the street in a crouch, looking for cover. Everyone around her was scattering, screaming. It was chaos. Was this a dream? Was this one of her nightmares that she’d wake up from in a cold sweat with a pounding heart?

An arm wrapped around her waist from behind and hauled her backward into the recessed doorway of a building. She struggled, screaming and kicking, but whoever had her was strong. Way stronger than her. Way stronger than a person should be.

“Help!” she screamed, lifting her arm up and jabbing her elbow back into her assailant as hard as she could.

A hand slapped over her mouth. “Stop!” a voice hissed against her ear. “It’s me.”

Darcy froze, her arm lifted for another jab back into his body. She’d know that voice anywhere. Coffee guy. When he moved his hand off her mouth, she looked over her shoulder and saw his face. Blue eyes pulled her in. “What the fuck, dude?” she said on a sharp exhale.

“I’m going to get you out of here, but you have to do what I say,” he snapped, letting his eyes dart over her shoulder to the left and right.

“What...” she started to ask, but he pushed her forward onto the sidewalk again, curling his body over hers like a shield. Darcy had no choice but to stumble forwards. They ran half a block like that before ducking into an alley. She could still hear gunshots and return fire down the street. It was still too close for comfort, especially when a man in fatigues stepped out from behind the dumpster in the alley.

Her savior—whoever he was—spun her away from him. Darcy hit the brick wall of the building hard. When she turned around, the man in fatigues was pointing a gun at her coffee partner. She lurched forward, her hand out to stop what was about to happen. Coffee guy lifted his arm as soon as the gun fired. She heard the tinny sound of metal on metal and then her man had stepped forward and slammed his fist into the gunman’s jaw. The other man went down like a sack of potatoes.

“What the fuck?” she muttered when coffee guy turned her way.

“Come on,” he urged, holding out his hand. She looked down to see the midday sun glinting off metal plates that shifted subtly as his fingers flexed.

She stood there for a moment, looking at his hand. The sound of tires squealing around a corner urged her to action and, without another thought, she took his hand and let him pull her further into the alley. She watched him boost himself up onto a chain link fence blocking off the back entrance. He extended his metal hand to her again. She took it and, without a word of warning, he hoisted her up next to him before setting her down on the other side. She stood there, dumbfounded, while his boots hit the ground next to her.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They ran a couple more blocks until a black SUV came to a stop just ahead of them. Her savior jerked open the door with more force than necessary and shoved her into the backseat.

“ _Go_ ,” he told the driver before he slammed the door shut and hit the side of the vehicle with his hand.

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She sat in the small examining room for close to thirty minutes before the nurse would release her. It took that long to reduce her heart rate and stop her hands from trembling. The ride back to the Tower had been quick and eventless, oddly calm. The nurse had told her it was shock; that she’d been in shock during the drive back to home base. Now she was coming down from the adrenaline high and she wanted to know two things: why was someone shooting at her and who the fuck was coffee guy with the metal hand?

And why hadn’t she noticed the hand before? He’d poured her coffee with that hand, offered her a mug with that hand. Sure, his body was great and she’d been known to sneak glances at his chest and shoulders and ass and eyes. But she wouldn’t have ignored a metal hand. Maybe it was a Stark invention: a covering that went over your actual hand. Everything had moved too fast and she wasn’t sure of anything any longer.

When the nurse released her to “get some rest,” Darcy hurried to her apartment where she flipped open her laptop and proceeded to search the employee database. Brown hair, blue eyes, just under six feet. Department? Covert ops, security, classified. All of the above? There were way too many hits—over one hundred eighty. Darcy chewed on her bottom lip as she scrolled through the pictures H.R. made everyone take on their first day. They looked more like mug shots and Darcy hated hers. None of them looked like him. Not by a long shot.

She scanned the list again, just in case. No such luck. It wasn’t like she’d miss his face in a crowd.

Darcy sat back on the couch, her fingers tapping against her legs. Shedding her coat, she logged out of the Stark intranet and pulled up the secure access portal. The cursor blinked in the user ID box momentarily before she typed in “ironman”. Now the password. What would Tony Stark use for a password? She only had a couple chances to get it right because the third would lock her out and Tony would know what she’d done when he received the warning on his cell.

What would a man like Tony use? Pepper, maybe? She typed in “pepper1977” and hit enter. Fuck. Wrong. Why couldn’t he be normal and just use his girlfriend’s name and her birth year? Because, mentally, he was a teenage boy. Darcy smiled and typed in “b00bies123” and hit enter again. She held her breath as the hourglass turned over and the more secure system that had Tony’s personal files opened before her. Jumping up, she threw her hands in the air in victory.

Darcy sat down quickly and navigated to dossiers on known agents. Tony had files on people who worked for him and especially on those who didn’t. She input her criteria, making it more vague this time. Blue eyes, around six feet, covert ops, security, classified. Twenty-seven hits. The first one was Captain America himself, Steve Rogers. She always liked to take a moment to admire him. The all-American boy scout look was never her type, but she could make some major exceptions for _that_.

She scrolled down and didn’t recognize anyone else. The last result was without a picture and listed the name as James B. Barnes. She’d never seen the name on any of Stark’s paperwork but, in fairness, she’d never seen most of the other names either. That being said, the name was familiar. She clicked on the dossier and scanned the brief synopsis. Howling Commando on Steve’s team. Oh. _Oh_. _That_ James Barnes. Bucky Barnes. But he was dead. Or rather, missing in action and presumed dead. Why the hell was he in Tony’s database?

A video file was linked at the bottom just beneath the last paragraph, clearly written by Tony since there were no capital letters. It said, “aka winter soldier - captured by hydra and tortured/brainwashed (?) into acting as covert assassin during the late 1940s through present. hydra equipped him with impressive metal arm. super soldier serum like cap.”

What the fuck? She clicked the video and saw a shaky cell phone video of a man in tactical gear in the distance, ripping open an overturned car door with a metal arm. His face was covered from his nose down with some weird mask. The picture quality wasn’t that great, but she would know that ass and those thighs anywhere. Coffee guy.

Coffee guy was a Hydra assassin. Former. _Former_ Hydra assassin if he was living in Stark Tower and saving her ass. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Darcy logged out and snapped her laptop closed. Without a thought, she pushed open her apartment door and rode the elevator up to the seventy-ninth floor where Tony’s office was. She could hear their raised voices when she pulled open the glass doors across from the elevator and walked down the hall. Tony's office was at the end of a short hallway. It was huge, swanky, pimp as all hell. Everything you'd think it should be if you imagined Tony Stark's office. But no stripper poles. He had more class than that, but just barely.

She stood in the doorway, her shoulder leaning into the frame. Captain America and Tony Stark were both on their feet, the desk between them. And from the tension in Captain America’s shoulders, he looked like he was about to deck Tony.

"What the fuck, dudes?" she said. Cap whipped around to look at her, revealing a red-in-the-face Tony who looked like he, too, was about to blow his top.

"Lewis, are you okay?" Tony asked.

"Here, sit down," Cap said, turning one of the armchairs in front of the desk toward her.

She waved it off. "I'm fine. But what's up with people shooting at me. I mean, were they shooting at me or was it just wrong place, wrong time?"

Cap turned to Tony. "It's not safe. You should have never let her leave the premises."

"I always have her followed."

"Woah, woah, woah," Darcy said, stepping into the office and crossing her arms over her chest. "You have me followed?"

"Hydra knows you're Tony's assistant," Cap said. His face looked drawn and serious. "We've been working to shut them down and they aren't happy about it. They're trying to strike back at us and you're a prime target because you can't defend yourself."

"I can so defend myself!" Darcy said, throwing her arms out to each side. "Except from sniper bullets that come from places I can't even see. Let's see you defend against that shit, Cap."

She didn't know him well enough to be talking to him like that, but he was really pissing her off. This was definitely not her fault. She was getting fucking cannoli for her fucking boss.

"You're a civilian and you shouldn't leave the premises without an armed escort," he replied, his tone more even. Guess a woman on the edge made him more likely to talk with his inside voice.

"Did you know about this?" She directed the question at Tony, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Because of _course_ he knew about this. Of fucking course.

He shrugged. "I thought it was a possibility, but you're a pain in the ass, Lewis. The minute I tell you you're on lockdown, you'd sneak out just to spite me. I've been putting a tail on you for the past three months. They follow at a discrete distance and make sure you get back with all limbs and most of your brain."

"And you didn't think to tell me that I might get shot?" she asked, stepping around his desk to poke him in the chest. "You had some security goons following me around to make sure nobody kidnaps me, but you didn't think I should know that some fucking sniper might try to put a bullet in my head."

"They were aiming for your leg," Cap said. She swung her gaze over to him and he had the decency to look apologetic. "They wanted to immobilize you so their team a few yards away could grab you. They knew you were being followed and the shooter was to take out your tail as well."

"What. The. Fuck," she said, looking from Cap to Tony and back again.

"She's unreasonable," Tony told Cap.

"Unreasonable? Fuck you, Tony."

Tony looked at Cap, but the other man just shrugged. "She had a right to know, Stark," Cap said.

"The security team did what they were supposed to do. No harm done. And now you know that they're out for your head. Probably wouldn't hurt to lay low for a while," Tony said.

"What? And miss getting your cannoli? Whoever will retrieve your desserts, Tony?"

"You had her picking up cannoli?" Cap asked Tony, his voice incredulous.

"And why is a former Hydra assassin on the security team? Conflict of interest much?"

“ _What?_ " both men said, their eyes wide.

Darcy snorted. "Well, well, well. Now I know something you don't. How does it feel, boys?"

"What are you talking about, Lewis?" Tony asked.

"The person who saved my ass out there, that's what I'm talking about. Did Barnes draw the short stick on security detail?"

"What?" Cap asked, stepping around the desk toward her.

"Your BFF Barnes. He's the one who pulled me out of the bullshit and stuck me in the car back there.” She paused when she saw them both giving her wide-eyed incredulous looks. “What? He's not part of the security team?"

"No," Tony and Cap both said in unison.

"So, I had a stalk-y security team and a stalk-y stalker?"

"Where is Bucky?" Cap asked, ignoring her question.

She shrugged. "I don't know. He shoved me in the backseat of the SUV and sent me off. I wasn't exactly at the top of my game, dude."

Cap left the room without another word. Tony sat down heavily in his fancy, high-backed office chair. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. "You really scared me there, Lewis."

"Boo hoo. I have a right to be pissed with you."

"No, I wasn’t afraid of you, idiot. I was afraid they got you. The guilt would have been monumental," he replied.

"I didn't know you cared so much, boss."

"Shut your mouth, Lewis." He looked up at her. "Hey, how'd you know that was Barnes? Did he finally tell you?"

"No. I guessed your password and pulled up the dossiers you keep on the extra special server. Boobies, Tony? Really?"

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Maybe when she’d been a little girl she’d dreamed of growing up and having a fancy office with her own stapler. But that had been a long time ago. Before hanging out under the stairs with all the other misfit nerds in high school. Before eating Ramen noodles out of a single-serve coffee pot in college. Before traveling around the country with Jane while they talked their way into observatories they had no right to use. Confidence and a healthy dose of don’t-ask-permission-just-apologize-later went a long way to getting what you want. She’d been barely making ends meet for so long that the idea of an office with a desk, computer, tape dispenser, and weird office artwork was a pie-in-the-sky dream. A strange dream that she’d somehow achieved.

Her little home away from home was on the seventy-ninth floor, just down the hall from Tony himself. He hogged all the windows, so her little space was interior with only a window that let her look out into the hall. But it was better than anything she’d hoped for herself. With the job market nowadays, she counted herself lucky to have a job. She leaned back in her chair and chewed on a Twizzler.

Coffee guy—Bucky Barnes, she corrected herself—had been M.I.A. this morning in the lounge on seventy-one. She’d tried to tell herself that it was no surprise, but his absence bothered her. He seemed like he might spook easy. Not that she was anything he’d be scared of—the man was the most successful assassin in history—but personal relationships seemed to make him shy away. It was probably a good thing they didn’t have a friendship of any kind.

Except they did. Telling herself they didn’t was a lie even _she_ wasn’t comfortable with. They had an unspoken relationship based off the need for quiet companionship and coffee between the hours of approximately three to five. He always left by five, before the sun could start warming the horizon. Then again, maybe he jogged with Cap in the morning. What a fucking sight that would be—the two of them in shorts, no shirt, muscles glistening. Yeah. _That_.

She closed her eyes and shoved another Twizzler in her mouth. Everything had happened so fast the day before and she’d been so terrified. Trying to recall the way his body felt pressed against her was difficult. All her mind kept going back to were the screams and the echo of gunshots bouncing off the buildings. The one thing that was still crystal clear was the feel of his warm breath on her ear when he told her to stop elbowing him. The memory gave her goosebumps.

“Ms. Lewis?”

She opened her eyes to find Captain fucking America standing in her doorway looking like the dreamiest boy scout there ever was. Blonde hair, blue eyes, too-tight navy T-shirt, and a pair of bootcut jeans that probably made his ass look like a work of art. The remainder of the Twizzler fell out of her mouth and landed on her desk. Hastily, she swept it off into the trash can underneath.

“Darcy,” she corrected him.

He smiled warmly at her. “Darcy. May I?” he asked gesturing at one of the empty chairs in front of her desk.

“Oh! Sure, mi casa es su casa, Cap.” God was she a dork or what?

“Steve. Please call me Steve,” he replied, settling in and crossing one ankle over the opposite knee.

“Gotcha. Steve. How goes the good fight? Defending the nation from all the baddies and such?”

He smiled again, the warmth spilling out of his eyes like he was just the most genuine, nicest guy there ever was. Apparently, the universe was fresh out of those kind of guys. Stopped making them in the twenties. “Uh, good. I think. I’m sorry about what happened yesterday with you...” He trailed off.

“Being shot at? Manhandled? Nearly decapitated with a spray of gunfire.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively, “Psh! All in a day’s work. Tony has to have his cannoli, you know.”

Steve tilted his head to the side. “Well, I’m sorry nonetheless. I hope you’ll consider staying in the Tower until we can figure out where this Hydra cell came from.”

“Yeah, for sure. But I’d totes appreciate you all getting to it because the bar on the fourth floor iss crap and I really need a drink after all that crazy shit from yesterday.”

“Oh. I... should I... can I get you a drink?”

Darcy laughed. “No. I was just kidding. I don't actually need a drink. I mean, I wouldn't turn down one. Are you even allowed to drink? Do symbols of America drink?"

Steve raised one brow at her. "I don't know. But Steves drink. They just can’t get drunk."

Darcy stared at him for a moment, watching his straight face. Finally she laughed at his dry sense of humor before offering him a Twizzler from her pack. "You're way funnier than Tony gives you credit for."

Steve waved away her offer of candy because superheroes with sexy bods don't partake of sugar. "Tony doesn't give anyone much credit for anything. Except for himself, of course," he told her with a wide grin.

"Steve, we are going to be best friends. I can already tell. But why did you really come see me? Not just to talk smack on Tony, I assume."

He shifted in the chair. "I came to talk to you about Bucky."

"Ooo-kay. What about him?" The only thing she knew for sure since the identity of coffee guy had been revealed was that he and Steve Rogers were thick as thieves.

Steve shifted again, looking more than a little uncomfortable. "He wasn't on your security detail. He... followed you on his own." His face was dead serious.

"Why the hell would he do that?"

"He said he sees you in the lounge downstairs a few times a week. That you two have coffee together."

"Yeah, maybe. I mean, coffee together would be a bit much. We sit in the same room and don't talk while we become functional human beings via the blessed gift of the gods: caffeine. I've said like maybe three sentences to the guy. He probably doesn't even remember my name and I sure as shit didn't know his until he saved me from taking about twenty bullets to the head."

"He knows your name," Steve assured her. "He has a hard time being around people. I wasn't sure where he was going each morning, but I let it go because he never left the building and when he got back he was... better, more present." Steve absently brushed a hand over his hair. "Thought he was spending time alone. Never really occurred to me he was spending it with someone."

Darcy shook her head. "Look, we just sit in the same room and ignore each other. It's no big thing."

"It is to him, Darcy. Do you... do you know what he's been through?"

She was suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation. Talking about him behind his back felt like a bit of a betrayal. "Beyond Tony's notes about him being some reformed brainwashed assassin, no. But, look dude, I don't think it's your place to tell. And it sure as shit isn't something I should know if he doesn't want me to know."

Steve nodded, his gaze steady and unwavering. And then he gave her that smile. The one that said he was true blue and oh-so-sincere. Gee whiz. "Be patient with him. I think he likes you."

"He's your friend, not a dog, Cap."

"Yes ma'am," he said, pushing himself out of the armchair.

"Darcy, not ma'am, you weirdo."

He looked over his shoulder as he was leaving. "Yes, Darcy."

What a fucking fantasy that was to hear Captain Tight Ass say yes followed by her name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all are awesome. Thank you for the kudos and especially for the encouraging comments. You don't know how much I appreciate it.
> 
> A big thank you to [ChocolateGate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cocosmama/pseuds/ChocolateGate) for offering her beta skills and being a sounding board and cheerleader.


	3. Chapter 3

> _“This is a lonely off-white room. I keep my gaze on you while other people move. Where you lead me I will go.” - Love Me In Whatever Way (James Blake)_

 Three days had passed and she’d woken nightmare-free. And yet each night she'd gone up to the lounge between three and four, depending on when her body decided to pull her mind out of slumber. She refused to set her alarm, but if she happened to wake early then she went. He never showed. And she never got to thank him.

She walked into Tony's office after the fourth morning without Bucky and said, "Is he on a mission?"

Tony raised his brows. "Your boyfriend? No, he's around."

"Thanks," she said as she turned on her heel and left the room. So, what was he doing? Avoiding her? What a jerk.

“Lewis,” Tony called after her.

She turned around to look at him.

“Be careful with him.”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s hardly a delicate flower, Tony. He deflected a bullet with his arm for crap’s sake.”

“I meant be careful around him. We’re cool now, but he’s dangerous. Might have tried to kill me once.”

Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Hmm, well, I’ve wanted to kill you more than once so maybe we’re two peas in a pod.”

Tony gave her a cheeky grin and turned back to his tablet while she stepped out of his office. His comment bothered her. Why should she be afraid of coffee guy? He seemed averse to even being close to her, much less touching her. Stepping around behind her desk, she pulled up Tony's list of contacts. Steve was at the top. She dialed the phone while deep in her righteous indignation. Captain America picked up on the third ring.

"It's Darcy," she told him. "You can tell your boy Bucky that it's totally fucking rude to save a girl and then ignore her for a week."

Steve was silent for several long seconds. "I... I'll be sure to pass along the message."

"Good," she said before hanging up.

That night she dreamt of a firefight and bullets ricocheting off building walls and parked cars. And screaming. So much screaming. She felt sick when she pushed herself up into a seated position and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She left her hair down but combed it with her fingers just in case she wouldn't sit through the last few hours of darkness alone. Her hopes weren't high.

But when she opened the door the lights were dimmed and the room smelled like the best coffee she'd ever had. He was standing by the window with his back to her. She didn't bother announcing her presence; he knew it was her. Instead, she poured a cup of coffee into the mug he'd left out for her.

Darcy walked up to stand next to him, closer than she'd dared to in the past—just three or four feet apart. She didn't look at him, just stood there and stared at the glow of the lights outside, grateful to not be alone after that nightmare. And grateful for what he'd done to protect her days earlier.

“So, you got my message from Steve?” she asked.

After a couple long moments when she didn’t think he would respond, he said, “Yeah.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “He said you sounded like you were going to kick both our asses if I didn’t show.”

Darcy glanced over and let her gaze trace this profile from his forehead to his strong jaw. “I just wanted to thank you for what you did. I have a pretty strong belief that I’d either be dead or locked in some shitty Hydra jail cell with a busted leg if it weren’t for... well, you.” She paused, but he didn’t respond. “So, thanks...”

“It was nothing.”

“Mmm, not really. And if you thought that was nothing then you’ve got a really fucked up idea of what life is like.”

He flinched. She would have missed it if she hadn’t been watching him so closely. He lifted his mug to his lips, trying to cover the involuntary reaction.

She sipped her coffee. His coffee. The best coffee. “So, what do I call you? I’ve been calling you coffee guy in my head.”

“Whatever. You know my name.”

“Don’t be so surly,” she told him, turning around and walking over to her chair.

After she’d settled into the plush cushions, he turned around and looked at her. The weight of his gaze made her want to squirm, especially knowing some of his backstory. “Didn’t think you’d want to see me again now that you know what I am,” he confessed, stepping over to the chair opposite her.

She didn't miss his choice of wording. What, not who. What I am. His face was inscrutable and closed off. He was very good at hiding his expressions. She should take some notes because she was absolute shit at it, and that probably showed when he looked up and caught her eye for just a fraction of a second. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? What you are, huh? Do you mean a broody bastard that resents sharing his kick-ass lounge with one of Tony's lackeys?" She didn't mean to sound so bitter with him, but he was difficult. She was used to people who rolled over when she pushed, who accepted her friendship as offered. She was fucking charming when she wanted to be. Right?

His gaze was on the floor at her feet. She was barefoot with bright pink polish on her toes. Was he looking at that or zoned out on the patterns in the carpet? "I don't resent you,” he muttered.

"Mmm, debatable," she said, tilting her head and trying to catch his eye. "Okay, I’ll bite. What are you, then?"

"A killer." His answer was immediate and landed flat between them.

"Yeah, well, join the club. You think your buddy Steve hasn't killed? Tony? Black Widow? Hawkeye? Bruce ‘The Hulk’ Banner? Give me a break."

"It's not the same." His face was blank, closed off, shut down.

Darcy shrugged. "Look, I don't know your story. I mean, I do, but not much. Just that you were captured by Hydra, had your brain fucked with, had a metal prosthetic arm slapped on, and thawed to do their dirty work when it needed done. That's a shitty hand, dude. And I think you get a free pass on that because... because I took a few psych classes in my indecisive academic career and people can do some really messed up stuff when someone diddles with their brain. For real."

His eyebrows furrowed as if he were thinking hard about something. She swept her eyes down his neck, over his broad chest covered in a red long-sleeve shirt, down his left arm to where his hand was exposed. No metal. So she hadn't been completely oblivious. Maybe he had some sort of covering on it. Now that she was looking close, even from a few yards away, it looked a little off. The fingers were a little too stubby and wide, especially when compared to his other hand.

"You talk a lot," he finally said.

"Bullshit. We've sat here for how many mornings and not said a damn word to each other. You opened the talking door when you followed me on errands and saved my ass. And I don't want you think I'm not appreciative, because I totes am, but you followed me, dude. Not the other way around."

"You were in danger. Stark wasn't doing enough."

"Can I ask how long you've been doing that?"

He shifted uncomfortably and delayed by taking a long drink from his mug. "A while," he finally said.

"A week? A month?"

"Two months." He seemed reluctant to confess it, but it was pretty obvious she wasn't going to give up without an answer.

Darcy swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm coffee that still tasted pretty damn good. "So since we met."

He didn't answer, just stared at her with those icy blue eyes. Yeah, there was a little resentment there. But resentment of what? Her presence? Or of her forcing him to admit something he didn't want to admit? Or maybe both?

Darcy averted her eyes first, choosing to get up and refill her mug. She brought the pot over to him and waited until he held up his mug in offering. Carefully, she filled it to just below the brim. "I'm glad you were there. Thank you."

He turned his gaze to the windows along the wall, dismissing her. Obviously someone was uncomfortable with thank yous. She added it to the long list of things Bucky Barnes was uncomfortable with, including himself. And as much as she didn't need a project, she really wanted to bring him out of his shell. Make him feel like he wasn't a horrible person. He saved her life for fuck's sake. Anyone who saved her life was golden in her book.

Instead of pressing him, she returned the pot to the kitchen and settled back into her chair. Turning her eyes out the windows, she let her focus blur until it was just a canvas of white and red dots and squares bleeding into black. It wasn't until then that she remembered her nightmare and how she'd completely forgotten about it. The memory seemed so distant now when it had been so fresh only a few minutes before.

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She had the dream again. But this time she was shot and lying on the sidewalk. A boot was descending toward her upturned face when she woke with a start. "Fuck," she muttered, rubbing a trembling hand over her face. How did people do this? How did people like Bucky or Steve or Tony go out there and risk their lives without the nightmares consuming them? She'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time—a participant against her will—and it felt like she was being eaten alive. They actually sought those situations out.

Her phone said it was four fifteen in the morning. Darcy ran a brush through her hair and shrugged into a sweater that hung low enough to cover her shorts. The elevator was blindingly bright as she rode up to seventy-one to find Bucky in his usual chair. The sight of him was a comfort.

"Morning, Bucky," she said softly as she walked by and ran a hand over the back of the chair. She'd really wanted to run her fingertips over his shoulders, but that probably wouldn't have gone over well. Just the touch on the chair made his muscles tense, contract, as if he was prepared to strike. Damn. Maybe she shouldn't be so casual with that. Tony had told her to be careful.

"Morning," he returned gruffly once she was standing in the kitchen in front of the coffee maker.

Darcy got her coffee and walked over to the window. It was cold for late March. April was just a couple days away and she was so ready for spring. Turning around, she caught him looking. His blue eyes darted from her ass down her legs and slid over the floor in front of the windows. It wasn't until then that she realized what it looked like—that she didn't have anything on under the sweater. Maybe he disapproved, what with his upbringing in the thirties and forties. Steve Rogers would probably disapprove of her attire. And Bucky wasn’t really looking because he liked what he saw. Men like him didn’t look at women like her. Period.

“Do you have nightmares?” she asked, stepping over to her chair and settling in with her coffee.

He was watching her with those gorgeous eyes. For a moment they looked cold and empty and then the next moment they were pools of deep, turbulent emotion. “Everyone has nightmares,” he replied after a long moment of silence.

“So, yes?”

“Yes.” His voice was controlled, measured. And yet it was somehow also very sad.

Darcy pulled in a deep breath that lifted her chest up, and then let it trickle out from between her parted lips. “Is that why you come up here at night?”

He took a drink before he answered with, “Don’t sleep very much.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” she said.

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

She turned her gaze away from him. He was too intense, too much. She was used to running the conversation, steering people in the direction she wanted them. He was a tough nut to crack. He made her want to slow down and shut her mouth and just let the silence sit. It felt... good. It had never felt that way before. Sitting in a room with someone while the heavy weight of silence lingered thick in the air was never a fun time. She wanted levity in the bounce of her words, in the silly banter. But with him it was okay to just sit.

So, she shut up and drank her coffee. He refilled her half empty mug when he refilled his. Whenever they were close like that he took care not to touch her. Not to even appear like he might touch her. His body language was so closed off that it was almost painful to watch him, especially for someone like her who thought nothing of a hug after making a fast friend.

She sipped her coffee and watched him move from the kitchen to the windows and back to his chair. He was in his usual attire: a long-sleeved shirt, a pair of sweatpants, and socks. Darcy wondered if he wore boxers or briefs. Or those sexy boxer briefs. Yeah, definitely those. They’d be black and they’d be tight against the muscles of his thighs. And she’d probably pledge her undying loyalty to him if she ever had the privilege of a glimpse.

His face was covered with scruff. Not a beard exactly, but just the other side of a five o’clock shadow that, when paired with his almost-shoulder-length hair, made him look like the sexiest bad boy in the room. Darcy usually had a thing for nerds, but damn if she didn’t want to hop on the back of his bike. What if he _did_ have a motorcycle? Someone who looks that good shouldn’t be allowed to ride one. Wasn’t fair for the rest of humanity.

She’d been staring so hard at him that she didn’t realize he’d been staring right back at her. When she swept her gaze up to his face, she noticed that his eyes were trained on her crossed legs. Probably wondering why I’m running around without pants on, she thought, tugging on the hem of the sweater to cover more of her thigh. The movement made him look away quickly. A moment later, he pushed himself out of the chair, deposited his cup in the sink, and walked over to the door. Bucky paused with his hands on the knob. “I’ll... see you around.”

Darcy smiled at his back. “Sure thing, Bucky. Have an awesome day.”

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“Before you even ask me, he’s on a mission,” Tony said when she walked into his office the next morning. She hadn’t planned on asking, but she had noticed Bucky’s absence that morning. Darcy also hadn’t gone up there looking for escape for nightmares because her sleep had been dreamless. She’d woken just after four o’clock and wanted to see him. It was a disappointment he wasn’t there. “Got called out last night to deal with that Hydra cell. Turns out they were operating out of a facility just outside Boston. He and Steve took a team up to see what they can find out,” Tony said looking over the rim of his glasses.

“I wasn’t going to ask,” she insisted.

Tony smirked. “Sure you weren’t. Like Jarvis doesn’t tell me when you pace around that lounge in disappointment.”

“Fuck off, Tony,” she snapped. “Here’s your fan mail to boost your delicate ego. And you have an interview at two with the Times. The conference room is open if you don’t want to do the Q and A in here.”

Before Tony could respond, she turned to leave. “Lewis,” he said, calling her back into the room. When she turned to face him, he said, “I saw the security footage from the attack on you. He risked himself to get to you. He’s been in hiding from Hydra for months.”

“He shouldn’t have,” she said automatically, unthinking. Because she sure as hell wasn’t worth the risk.

“He probably thinks different. And that’s a good thing, Lewis. Maybe there’s hope for him after all.”

She shrugged off Tony’s comment and walked back to her office. It had just been twenty-four hours and she missed him. Pathetic. She needed to get over it and have a life. Go on dates. Oh, wait. No dates for her because some looney tunes terrorist organization bent on taking over the world thought she was just the perfect pawn in their little game with Tony Stark. What a bummer.

Instead, she reorganized the file system and cleaned out Tony’s e-mail inbox. At four-thirty, a deliciously familiar ass strode by her office and into the boss-man’s room. A few minutes later, he was walking by again. Instead of continuing on like he normally did, Steve Rogers poked his head through her doorway.

“Hi, Darcy.”

“Hi, Steve.”

“Bucky was with me on a mission.”

She smiled. “I know. Tony thought I needed to know. But I assure you, I’m not Bucky’s keeper.”

Steve smiled back. “Yeah, I know. But he would probably want you to know.”

“He say that?” she asked.

“Not in so many words. But... you know Bucky.”

Darcy raised her brows. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“Well, you should get to know him then. He’s... he’s a good guy.”

And then he was gone, those long legs taking him to the elevator and away from her sight. What was that about?

She fell asleep on the couch just after ten o’clock that night with her television still playing an old comedy from the eighties. When she woke at three thirteen, she pulled her hair into a messy bun on top of her head, smoothed the matching pale pink cotton shorts and shirt, and slipped out of her place and into the elevator. He was there in the lounge just starting the coffee to brew.

He watched her walk into the kitchen, stepping back from the machine to give her space. Darcy hopped up onto the counter and watched his eyes bounce from her face to her legs and back again. "How did the mission go?" she asked, pulling two mugs out of the cabinet behind her head.

"It went."

She rolled her eyes at him. "I don't see any black eyes so I assume it was a piece of cake."

"Something like that," he agreed.

"Well, sounds to me like..."

"No," he said, cutting her off. "The threat isn't over. You can't leave the Tower yet."

Darcy pushed out her lower lip in a pout. "Party pooper." She looked down at his hand. The glint of metal caught her eye. It was uncovered like when he'd saved her that day. "Do you have some fancy skin-colored glove for your left hand?" she asked.

Bucky lifted his hand so they were both looking down at his palm. "Yes."

"Why cover it up?"

He looked at her with a furrowed brow. "Because it makes people uncomfortable and reveals my identity."

"Oh. Hmm. I think it looks fucking rad. The metal hand, I mean."

His fingers curled into the shiny palm. It was fascinating to watch the tiny plates of his hand shift so seamlessly.

"Can I touch?" she asked softly.

He looked up to meet her gaze, a stricken look in his eyes. "What?"

"Your hand," she said. "Can I touch it?”

"Why?"

Darcy shrugged and gave him a smile. "Just curious. You're allowed to say no."

She looked down to see his fingers slowly unfold and extend. He lifted it up, bridging the gap between where she sat on the counter and where he stood not so far away. Darcy's fingers were curled around the edge of the counter on either side of her legs. When she saw him make the offer, she lifted a hand and let the tip of her index finger run from his wrist to the spot where his middle and ring fingers met.

She raised her other hand and looked at him for confirmation. "Can I?" she asked, hesitating. He gave her a slight, tight nod before she used her right hand to cup the back of his hand so the fingers of her left could curl his digits into his palm. The metal was warmer than the air, but not by that much. The technology was beyond what she'd ever seen, including the tech that Tony had at his disposal. His fingers bent at every spot that hers did, looking so much like the real thing. "Wow," she told him.

He seemed like he was on the verge of fleeing. "I can feel you," he muttered on an exhale, eyes wild and looking for an escape.

"That's crazy," Darcy whispered. "What does it feel like?"

"Soft pressure, warmth," he said in a rough voice before pulling his hand out of her loose grasp when the coffee pot beeped.

She felt like she'd crossed a line and done something wrong. "I'm sorry," Darcy said.

"Don't apologize," he told her while he poured their coffee.

"I like it. Your hand."

"You shouldn't. It's a weapon." He ran his right hand—the flesh and bone one—roughly through his hair.

Darcy picked her mug up and slipped off the counter to stand before him. "Only if you use it that way."

"I do."

She shrugged. "Not with me."

"What makes you think I wouldn't?" he asked, his blue eyes hard, defiant. Bluffing. She'd call that bluff.

"You've had plenty of chances and you haven't. And I trust you. You make me feel... safe."

Bucky exhaled a harsh breath and retreated to the seating area. He walked past the chairs and posted up by the windows. She didn't follow him, sensing that he needed some space. Apparently Bucky Barnes didn't like physical contact all that much. What a damn pity. He was a babe. Not that she could bag that. But a girl could dream, right?

After she'd given him a couple minutes, Darcy slipped over to her chair and settled in. He stood at the windows for fifteen minutes, looking out at the lights, a view she was all too familiar with. Finally, he joined her and sat in his usual chair. He looked like a wounded wolf backed into a corner. "I'm sorry," she said again.

"I said not to apologize," he told her a second time. Her mind swirled around thoughts of him, her heart aching.

They sat in silence until just before five o’clock when he got up to leave. "See you," he said softly with his hand on the doorknob.


	4. Chapter 4

> _“Have you thought of me? Do you know you could have all of me?” - Favorite (Denitia and Sene)_

Nowadays she woke between three and four in the morning, nightmare or not. Darcy had always been a night owl, but with each passing day it was easier to get up before anyone else was awake. Sleeping in was a thing of the past, and she would have admitted to missing it greatly if she didn’t get a rush out of seeing Bucky every morning. This morning she woke from a dreamless, yet unsatisfying sleep and found her way to the lounge. Although the lights were on and the coffee pot was full, there was no one else in the room.

“Ms. Lewis?”

She ducked her head and threw a hand over her heart. “Jarvis, you scared me!” she said gasping.

“My apologies, Ms. Lewis. Mr. Barnes sends his regrets. He was called away to Boston yesterday afternoon. He asked me to brew the coffee for you.”

“Did you grow arms, Jarvis? How did you brew the coffee?”

“No arms, Ms. Lewis. Mr. Barnes readied the pot; I simply turned on the electrical current.”

“Oh.” She stood there in the doorway and looked at the coffee pot across the room. “That was... thoughtful.”

“Indeed,” Jarvis responded.

When she’d showered and dressed and shuffled into her office, she found that she was on her own for the day. Tony was out as well. Perhaps working with Bucky and Steve. She wasn’t really in the loop on all that. She handled the Stark Industries business and only heard things in passing about the Avengers business.

By two o’clock that day she had organized Tony’s tools in his lab and been asked on a date by one of the security guards in the lobby when she went downstairs to get a sandwich for lunch. He was a nice guy—tall with great arms and a pair of glasses that made him look like Clark Kent. She didn’t get asked out a lot. Jane told her it was because she was so forward that it was intimidating to men. Darcy begged to differ, but whatever. Beggars couldn’t be choosers and he—Greg—seemed like a perfectly nice guy. So, she’d told him sure and asked if they could have dinner on Friday.

Would she have rather gone with Bucky? Probably. Maybe. Definitely. But that wasn’t going to happen. He was a super soldier with a bionic arm and perfect body. Out of her league, even if he did make her coffee like the sweetest not-really-a-boyfriend ever. So, Greg it was. Besides, Greg was probably out of her league too.

Tuesday morning came and went without Bucky. She had to make her own coffee and she decided she was really disappointed that her date was with Greg and not Bucky. And then within five minutes, she’d decided that she was stupid for even thinking that and she needed to accept the Bucky thing was never going to happen. And did she even want to date a superhero? There were probably lots of negatives. Jane had gone through hell with Thor at first. Darcy had been a witness to all that fallout and she didn’t care to bring it on herself. Not that she could if she wanted to. Bucky Barnes did _not_ like her that way.

On Wednesday morning she shot out of bed from a new nightmare. Bucky was shot and bleeding out on the sidewalk where she’d been attacked. Her hands were covered in his blood, but she couldn’t stop it from pumping out of his body. The wounds were everywhere—his stomach, chest, legs, head. She didn’t have enough hands to staunch the flow. She let out a ragged cry as she woke, her mind halfway still in the dream.

“Fuck,” she muttered, shuffling into the bathroom to pee and look at her sallow expression in the mirror. She looked like hell. Not enough sleep and too much stress.

When she went up to the lounge, she was disappointed to find he wasn’t there. She brewed the coffee with her eyes half open and her heart in her stomach. What if he’d been hurt? What if that was why she had the dream? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

At half past four while she was on her third cup, the door open and she nearly dumped the coffee on herself when she startled. Bucky slipped into the room and shut the door.

“Hey,” Darcy said, trying to regain her wits.

“Hey,” he replied softly before moving toward the kitchenette after a moment’s pause.

He looked very different. He was in tactical gear. Black pants with buckles and pockets with a matching vest that had straps and spoke of weapons and violence. His flesh arm was covered in a tight black lycra fabric, but his metal arm was bare, gleaming even in the low light. He still wore at least two guns she could see on his belt and a huge knife on his vest.

She got up and moved to follow him into the kitchen. He turned to refill her cup after he’d poured his own. It was a comforting dance. One they'd done many mornings before.

"Coming or going?" she asked, gesturing to his attire.

"Coming. We just got back."

Oh. Like just now, she realized. Like, he was dressed that way and there after her because he'd just walked into the building. "Your arm is..." she said, running her eyes down it.

He was standing just a couple feet away, closer than he normally allowed himself to be. She'd found that he was very particular with his body in relation to her. She assumed it wasn't just her, though. He was probably standoffish with everyone. Maybe a side effect of what he'd been through. Bucky looked down at his arm like it wasn't even part of his body. "It's what? Scary?"

"Impressive," she replied without a thought.

Something, some current of electricity, flashed through his eyes before disappearing. It set her on edge, but in a good way. In a I-wish-he'd-kiss-me-senseless-right-now kind of way. But he didn't. Instead, he said, "It isn't." And then he stepped around her and ran away to his chair.

Darcy followed, watching the way his arm moved when he walked. Just like any other arm would. There was something so fascinating about it—how it worked so seamlessly, how it was just as much a part of him as anything else he'd been born with. Except he didn't seem to think so. And maybe she would have felt the same way if she'd had an arm replaced like that. Instead of sitting down where she normally did, she stood a few feet in front of his chair, sipping on her coffee. "How did it go?"

Bucky looked up at her. "Fine."

"The coffee day before yesterday was sweet of you."

He shifted, obviously uncomfortable with the subject matter.

She took pity on him and changed the subject, but probably to something even more sensitive. "Can I touch it?"

He looked up at her with a stricken, shocked look in his eyes. "What?" he almost barked out.

"Your arm. Can I touch it?"

"I... it's not..." He stumbled over words before finally closing his eyes and saying, "Yeah, whatever."

Darcy stepped forward until her legs were almost touching his knees. She wanted to step between them, but that might have been too close. He was already wound so tight and wary. With a cheeky little grin, she reached out and pressed the tip of her left index finger into the flesh of his right arm.

When she looked at his face, his eyes were trained on her hand, her skin on his. And then he huffed out a harsh, brief laugh at her touching the other arm. The real arm.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said when he looked up at her with those gorgeous eyes. "Did you think I was talking about the other one?"

The corner of his mouth twitched like he was fighting a smile. Fucking success. She felt like she'd just won a million bucks. "I would have said no if I'd known you weren't," he replied, mischief in his eyes for the first time.

"Huh," she said, pulling back her hand and passing her mug over to the left so her right was free. Then she reached out and pressed her palm against his upper left arm, wrapping her fingers around the metal plates. Just like his palm, it was slightly warmer to the touch than she'd anticipated, but not by much. A subtle flex of the arm as he readjusted his body in the chair caused the plates to shift just a bit. Enough for her to feel them move under her fingers. She kept her hand in place, just sliding it down to the crook of his elbow, while she stepped in between his knees and looked down at him.

He looked up at her with wide eyes. She couldn't place the emotion there. Shock? Anxiety? Nervousness? Lust? Yes, please, lust. Fat chance, though.

The door opened. "Hey, Bucky, debrief is in the conference room on seventy-nine after the second team is back. Probably in..." Steve Rogers stopped in the doorway, his hand still on the knob when he saw Bucky sitting in the chair with Darcy standing between his legs, her hand on his arm. Darcy jerked her hand away and stumbled back a step at the same time that Bucky shot out of the chair and turned to face the door.

Steve's eyes went back and forth between the two of them, finally settling on Bucky. "Debrief in twenty. Team two is incoming and should be here in fifteen. I... didn't mean to interrupt."

"Nothing to interrupt," Bucky replied, his voice gruff.

"Yeah," Darcy agreed. "Just drinking coffee." She held up her mug and gave Steve a smile. Her hand was dripping with too-warm coffee that had spilled on her when she'd jumped back. So smooth, she told herself with a mental eye roll.

Bucky was already in the kitchen, dumping his coffee out. Steve watched Darcy, his eyes sharp and assessing. And there was probably a little bit of amusement in there. He looked like an older brother who had just caught his younger one messing around with a girl for the first time. Which was stupid because that was _not_ what this was. And she didn't know how to disabuse him of the notion without sounding like a complete idiot.

She watched Bucky step around Steve and exit without saying a word. She'd be lying if she said it didn't sting a little.

Steve gave her a gentle smile. "It's not what it looked like," Darcy told him.

"Okay," he replied.

"I'm serious, Steve. We weren't doing anything."

"I believe you. You okay?"

"I'm fine."

He made to leave, but turned back around, his eyes serious. "He won't let anyone touch him," he told her.

"I..."

Steve waved whatever she was about to say away. "He won't let _anyone_ touch him, Darcy."

"Obviously that's not true," she said.

Steve smiled again, his eyes warm. "Obviously not any more."

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On Thursday morning she wondered if he'd be there to spend their hour or two together after what happened the day before. Not that they were actually doing anything. The touch was nothing. Not even halfway to first base, for crap's sake. It wasn't like Steve had walked in on them sucking on each other’s tongues or fucking against the wall. Not that she'd be opposed. She'd definitely be game for that.

Bucky was not deterred though. He was standing in front of the miracle machine, watching the thin stream of coffee collect in the pot. And he was wearing a T-shirt so she could see his arms. He didn't turn when she approached, but she knew he was aware. He was a super soldier and she wasn't exactly the quietest person. "Hey, you," she said hopping up on the counter. His eyes flicked from her chest back to her face. If asked, Darcy would deny wearing the too-tight shirt without a bra on purpose. She’d absolutely never do anything like that. Never. Probably. It still felt good to get his attention, even in such a pathetic, underhanded way.

"Lemme see your arm," she said, extending her hand. Tilting his head in thought, he stepped up to the counter she was seated on and offered his flesh arm. Darcy smiled at him and cupped his elbow before trailing her fingertips lightly down the inside of his forearm. She could see the goosebumps lift on his skin at her touch. "This is a very nice arm, but I meant your other one."

Without a word, he pulled his right arm away from her and replaced it with his metal one. Darcy lost herself for a moment in the exploration, the smooth and unblemished surface of the plates, the fine seams showing where one overlapped with the next, the slightly-warmer-than-room temperature feel. He flexed his fingers and she watched the plates in his hand and wrist realign like they were part of his body.

She turned his arm over and trailed fingertips over his elbow down to his pinky. The workmanship was remarkable. She didn’t know mechanics or robotics, but she knew that his arm was a work of art. "This really is the coolest shit ever," she told him as she threaded her fingers between his metal ones and pressed their palms together. When she looked up to gauge his reaction his eyes were focused on her skin pressed against the metal, her fingers laced with his. It looked strange but felt just fine.

When he looked up at her, his blue eyes seemed a shade darker. And he was so devastatingly gorgeous with his lips parted just the slightest bit and his gaze so heavy and, if she didn't know better, hungry.

"Does it feel like your other hand?" she asked, honestly curious.

Instead of answering right away, he held up his right hand, fingers spread. Darcy slipped her free hand into it, palms together, fingers laced so he had both her hands in his.

"Not quite," Bucky murmured. "The left only feels temperature, pressure, and basic texture."

"But you can still feel me?"

"I can," he agreed. "Aren't you afraid I'll crush you hand?" He squeezed her fingers with his left hand. It was slight, but the metal was unyielding.

"No. Never occurred to me."

The coffee pot dinged to indicate it was finished with its work, but he didn't pull away and she sure as hell wasn't going to.

"How much do you remember?" she asked.

She didn't know how else to broach the subject of his past because she was afraid being specific would make him close off again. Honestly, she wasn't even really expecting an answer. When he gave her one, she was shocked.

"Most of it."

"What do you remember?"

His eyes held hers when he said, "You don't want to know."

"I do if you want to tell me."

His gaze dropped to look at their intertwined fingers. "The words they used to control me. The feel of the electric shock gear on my head. The first few seconds in the cryo chamber. Every person I killed." When she didn't respond, he asked, "Does that scare you?"

Darcy squeezed both his hands. "No. Makes me want to kick those Hydra fuckers in the balls."

He huffed out a rough bark of laughter that didn't really qualify as such. "You have a filthy mouth."

"I know," she said with a grin. "Gets me in trouble sometimes, but I'm also pretty sure it's what got me the job with Tony. He was tired of scaring away delicate flowers so he figured a chick with a mouth like a sailor wouldn’t scare so easy. And here my mom told me it would impede my career opportunities."

He gave her a weak smile, but she'd take whatever she could get from him.

"Hey," she said, "you know if you ever want to talk then I'm here."

Bucky gently slipped his hands out of hers and stepped to the side to fill their mugs. "Steve is forcing me to talk to a therapist."

"Sometimes you just need to talk to a friend, not a professional."

He stepped back over to her. "Is that what you are?" he asked softly.

"You betcha," Darcy replied.

Bucky lifted his hands and placed them on her waist. Darcy couldn't stop the sharp inhale of breath or the instinctual reflex that made her slip her hands onto his broad shoulders. He oh-so-gently used that super soldier strength to slide her off the counter and set her on her feet in front of him. Darcy wanted to curl her fingers into the thin fabric of his white T-shirt, but she released him when he took his hands off her waist.

Bucky reached behind her and retrieved a mug which he handed to her. Oh. Yeah. Coffee. She’d forgotten. Mornings were no longer made for coffee. They were made for Bucky Barnes.

She tried to hide her longing by taking a sip of the coffee. "Mmm," she moaned. "You make the best coffee." Darcy followed him out of the kitchen and into the sitting area. Instead of choosing her chair, she settled into the larger sofa, her back braced against the armrest and her legs stretched out across the cushions. Bucky opted for his usual seat.

They sat there for an hour with barely a word said. Bucky got up at five o'clock and rinsed his mug. On his way to the door, he trailed the fingers of his bionic metal hand over the back of the couch, ghosting against her outstretched arm. She gave him a smile when he checked her reaction.

"Have a good day," she told him.

"You too."

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Darcy had a date that night, but she completely forgot about it when she walked into the lounge at ten ‘til four and saw Bucky standing by the window with his coffee. He was in a pair of black sweat pants that rode low on his hips and a dark grey T-shirt that stretched tight over his chest and arms. When he turned to look at her, she almost swallowed her tongue at the glimpse of skin on his abdomen where the shirt lifted. When he was fully facing her, the hem of the shirt fell back into place, covering what it was meant to.

Was she drooling? She really hoped she wasn’t drooling. His expression was distant and his eyes were cold. It seemed to be his default expression. Darcy was starting to feel like making him look at her with something other than impassive indifference was a challenge, a game.

“Morning, Bucky,” she said, padding into the kitchen in her bare feet.

She yawned as she poured her coffee, and she almost spilled it all over the counter when she heard his voice right behind her. “Do you have nightmares every night?”

Darcy finished pouring and replaced the pot on the burner. “No,” she said, turning around to face him. “Why?”

“You used to come here two or three times a week. Now you come here every morning.”

Oh. That. How to answer that without telling him that she had a crush on him and simultaneously wanted to comfort him and fuck his brains out? Probably should downplay the fuck-his-brains-out part. She’d spent her college days chasing and throwing herself at her crushes with enthusiasm. That usually only yielded awkward embarrassment and subpar sex. “I like spending my mornings with you,” she said, settling on vague, but complementary. He deserved compliments. So many compliments.

“Hmm,” he mused, watching her intently.

“Why do you come here every day?” She turned around to grab her mug off the counter.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. She’d learned to give him time to answer. If you let the silence ride, he’d open his mouth. It was a hard thing for her to do because she liked to fill that space. Finally, he said, “I don’t sleep well. Maybe I... slept too much over the past seventy years.”

“Not any more than I slept my sophomore year of college. I’m pretty sure I was the nap champion of McCormick Hall.” She smiled at him and his eyes warmed. She could actually see the change in him and wanted to pat herself on the back for an awesome job. “How often did your alarm go off?”

His brows furrowed. “How often did they bring me out of cryo?”

“Mmm hmm.” She nodded and took a sip of her coffee.

“That’s hazy. I remember things, but the timeline... that’s harder. Maybe once every year or two? Maybe more often. Sometimes it seemed longer, but I didn’t... didn’t really have a concept of time. Still don’t when it comes to those years."

Darcy slipped her right arm between his body and his left arm, wrapping herself around the metal limb. He stiffened at the touch, but allowed her to lead him into the sitting area. His body was warm—very warm—through the thin T-shirt. And hard like he was all muscle. “When did you start remembering? Did you remember the previous incidents when they... woke you each time?”

“No,” he responded immediately. “When I woke I was given instructions and followed them. I didn’t think to... question. If I was out of cryo for longer than usual then I’d...” He trailed off when she released him and sat down on the couch. However, instead of sitting beside her like she’d intended, he moved over to his chair and lowered himself. Well, she gave it the good old college try.

“If you were out for longer then what?” she asked, curling her legs underneath her.

“I’d remember bits and pieces, but I didn’t know where the memories came from... when they came from.”

“Like memories of your life before... the accident?” How the hell could she tactfully ask about falling out of a moving train and losing his arm?

“No,” he said, shaking his head once. “Pieces of previous ops, assassinations.”

“Did you start to piece them together the longer it went on?”

Bucky shook his head once again. “No. They... reset me?” It was more a question that a statement, like he didn’t know how to explain what they did. She didn’t say anything and he continued. “The electroshock would wipe it out.”

“Did you feel it?”

“Them wiping my memory? Yeah, but right after I’d forget what it felt like. And then I was in a tank and everything was cold. And then nothing until they pulled me out of cryo again.”

“Lather, rinse, repeat,” she told him.

Bucky gave her a wane, tired smile that barely even qualified as such. “Yeah, something like that.”

She took a sip of coffee and asked, “So, when did you start to really remember and keep it?”

“After Steve. I fought him and he said my name. It... felt strange. I asked them about him, but they wiped me. Except they didn’t put me back in cryo then. They sent me back out. When I saw Steve again it started coming back.”

“But jumbled, not in order?”

He nodded slowly. “I remembered buying him a beer in a dive bar in Brooklyn before I was deployed. I remembered it while we were fighting and it made me mad. Made me want to kill him because I didn't understand. I felt like... like an animal.”

“But you saved him. Tony said...”

“I shot him. He needed saving because of me.”

Darcy waved off his confession. “You weren’t... you.”

“But I did it.”

“Sure, but extenuating circumstances, dude. Cut yourself a break.”

"You honestly think I deserve one?"

Darcy snorted. It was unladylike, but he was staying some really crazy shit. "Think you deserve a break? Fuck yeah, I do. Blank slate, dude. You got a blank slate with me. Be who you wanna be."

He rolled his tongue out to wet his lower lip and she hid her slack-jawed lust by taking a drink from her mug. "Definitely don't deserve that, but... it's appreciated." His eyes were locked on her, intense and steady. Like he was desperate for her to understand. It made Darcy nervous. She was playing a dangerous game. He wasn't just some cute guy she could flirt with. He was damaged and this dance—this strange friendship—could damage him further if she was her usual careless and carefree self. The responsibility hit her and the weight of it was frightening.

"Everybody deserves a second chance. Besides, you never got a first one from me."

He didn't say anything for a long time, choosing instead to stare off to the right out the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. Finally, he said, "It's nice to talk to someone who didn't know me before."

Darcy smiled. "I think the list of people who knew you before is pretty damn small. Steve and... Steve."

"Someone who didn't know me before and isn't scared of me now," he corrected.

"Gotta be honest here," she said. "You're not very scary."

He seemed taken aback. "I could kill you right now. Easily."

She shrugged. "But you won't. Hence why you're not scary."

"You have too much faith in me."

Darcy stood up and walked over to him, holding a hand out for his mug. "I think it's more like you don't have enough faith in yourself. You saved my life a few days ago, dude. I'm one hundred and ten percent certain I'd be in a coffin if you hadn't played stalker for a day."

He handed her his mug and she took both in the kitchen for a refill.

"Saving a chick's life means she's gonna think you're hot shit until the end of time. No lie." She returned with his coffee and handed it over, but stayed standing in front of his chair.

"Hot shit?" he asked.

Darcy laughed. "I forget you're a man out of time. Uh, it means awesome. The best. Wonderful. How did you guys say it back in the olden days, gramps?"

The edges of his mouth turned up a bit. "Swell," he replied. "And we didn't call women chicks."

"What did you call women?" she asked with a lift of one brow.

"Dames."

She laughed harder this time. "Oh, boy. You guys and your slang. Okay, well, saving a dame's life means she's gonna think you're swell until the end of time."

"I really didn't do that much, Darcy." The sound of her name on his lips make her want to slide into his lap and wrap her arms around his neck

"Dude, I was there. You deflected a bullet with your _swell_ arm after you pulled me out of the line of fire less than a minute earlier. I'm not so bad at hand-to-hand combat if I have a taser, but I'm useless if someone is shooting at me. I would have been dead."

He took a drink of coffee and she watched as his tongue flicked the edge of the mug. Jesus H. Christ. He shouldn't be allowed to tempt anyone, much less her, like that. The pathetic thing was that he didn't even know what he was doing, sitting there all innocent while he flooded her panties. "It's not hand-to-hand combat if you have a taser."

"Sure it is. The taser's in my hand," she replied. He was giving her the almost-smile that was so subtle and so fucking enticing that she couldn't help herself. So, she went with it and took a step forward, turning to perch her ass—her generous ass, she admitted—on the arm of his chair.

The only place they touched was where her hip was pressed into the upper part of his left arm, but she could swear she felt his entire body tense. His eyes were on her bare thigh where the shorts had slid up. When he wet his lip again, she almost let her ass slide down into his lap, fuck the consequences.

Instead, she said, "Let me see your arm."

"Which one?" he asked.

"Dealer's choice," she told him.

He lifted the left one, the one she was already touching. Darcy took his wrist in her hand and settled his forearm onto her leg. His metal fingers curled over her knee, but he didn't press the tips into her skin, leaving the touch light. She wished he would. She wished he would pull her down and slip that hand into her shorts. She was a terrible person, wanting to take advantage of him.

"So, you can really feel this?" she asked, running the tip of her index finger up his forearm from the wrist to the crook of his elbow.

"Mmm, hmm." His voice was a rumble.

"I can't wrap my mind around that. That you'd be able to feel through metal."

"Metal is all there is, so I'm not feeling through it."

Darcy traced circles on the back of his hand and figure eights up his arm. "Hmm, I guess that's true."

"The prosthetic is connected to my nervous system."

She laid her palm flat on his forearm and curled her fingers in, dragging her nails across the metal plates. His breath hitched, but before she could say anything else, the door opened.

This time she stayed right where she was even if the sound make her jerk to attention. Bucky closed his eyes, seeming to know exactly who was at the door directly behind him.

It was Steve, of course. Captain America had his star-spangled pants on, but just a regular tee on top. He swept his eyes over the situation—Darcy on the arm of the chair with Bucky's forearm resting on her leg. He flashed her an apologetic smile.

"We've gotta go back to Boston, Bucky," he said, directing his statement to the back of Bucky's head.

"Yeah, okay," Bucky replied, his eyes still closed.

Darcy slipped her hand down to rest on top of his, lacing her fingers between his. "Be safe," she whispered. She knew she wasn't fooling Steve and his super powered hearing, but she wanted the comment to be just for Bucky. She needed him to know it was just for him.

He opened his eyes and glanced up at her before slipping his arm away and standing up. Darcy stood at the same time and looked over at Steve. He mouthed "I'm sorry" and gave a helpless shrug.

When Bucky walked past her to leave, the fingers of his right hand—the flesh and bone one—grazed her bare thigh. He left without a word. Darcy stood there for ten minutes trying to figure out if the touch was on purpose or just a happy accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lurv you all for the wonderful compliments and encouragement. And I hope you're still enjoying this little fledging relationship between Darcy and Bucky. Drop me a line here or on Tumblr ([physical conversation](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/physicalconversation)). I still don't really know how to use it because I'm old, but I can answer messages and such.


	5. Chapter 5

> _“Are you afraid of me? ‘Cause I’m afraid of you. ‘Cause I’m afraid of what this could mean. I’m afraid of what this could do. I’m going to hell, I know, I know. I don’t care, I’m in love. - going to hell (Miguel)_

She'd had one too many drinks. Or maybe it was three too many drinks. She wasn't at the point of throwing up, but she _was_ at the point of insisting to anyone around that she absolutely wasn't drunk. Jane had always said the true test of whether Darcy Lewis was inebriated was if she insisted she was “like totally almost sober.” Well, tonight she was like totally almost sober. Kinda, but not really.

The date with Greg was a disaster from before he even met her at the swanky place on the fifth floor. He'd wanted to go to a restaurant a few blocks over and had pushed surprisingly hard for it over the past two days. She’d had to make some lame excuse because of her lockdown. In fairness, she wasn't that pumped to have dinner with him when all she could think about was Bucky. Her rational side told her she needed to slow her roll and get back with reality. She and Bucky were not and never would be a thing. Incompatible at best and embarrassingly out of her league at worst. So what if he'd looked like he’d want to kiss her that morning. So what, right? He had bigger fish to fry. Like saving the city or country or world.

Greg, on the other hand, wasn't saving shit. He was into football and football pools and ESPN and fantasy football. And, oh, did he say football? When she tried to tell him about her work with Jane, he interrupted and asked her if she’d ever gone to a Broncos game when she'd been in New Mexico. When she’d told him Denver was in a completely different state and changed the subject, he'd gotten a little pissy. That just got worse when she smacked his hand off her thigh _three times_ while they were waiting for dessert. Dessert she didn't even fucking want. She'd just wanted the torture to end. Despite how horrible the date was going, he seemed dead set on taking her home to his place in Queens.

When she told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t leaving with him, words were exchanged and he'd called her a few choice names, two of which were bitch and tease. Because he was a classy guy. He’d also said something about her dress being stupid and old-timey. Darcy had dumped a full glass of water on his lap at the urging of the wine she’d had with dinner. The wine hadn't gotten her drunk, but it did loosen her up enough to celebrate the ceremonial dumping of the water by waving at the other patrons of the restaurant and giving them a little bow. Two women in the corner applauded her while Greg stormed out, red in the face. She had to pick up their check. Yeah, like she said, classy guy. Story of her life.

No fucking loss. Stark Tower was like a self-contained city, so she’d gone down one floor to a bar named Rouge to have another drink. The bar wasn’t her scene, but she needed to be drunker than she currently was to deal with this bullshit. Darcy felt lost after having been tethered to Jane so long. Now she was on her own and didn’t know how to make friends again. She’d heard that making friends got harder as you got older and, boy, wasn’t that the truth. For the past few months she’d been living for work, even going into the office on weekends because what the hell else was she going to do? Sit at home by herself and watch John Hughes marathons? Enticing, but that wasn’t really healthy. Right?

Two different men had approached her while she sat there sipping on Greyhound after Greyhound, savoring the tart flavor of the grapefruit juice. She’d dismissed them both and they’d probably happily scattered after looking at the flat, dead look in her eyes. Now was not the time to hit on her since she had zero interest in company or attention from a man. Except maybe Bucky’s attention.

Honestly, Bucky was probably the catalyst for the terrible date. She’d been a little standoffish to Greg because her mind was elsewhere. And, while Greg looked just fine, he was no Bucky fucking Barnes. Still, though... Greg had no right to monopolize the conversation with his own personal version of Sports Center. He had no right to call her names and make her feel enough like a piece of shit that she dumped water on him. Fuck him. She was in the right even if they would have never amounted to anything, not with Bucky watching her with those blue eyes over the rim of his coffee mug every morning.

This was a major problem. Like, super major. She knocked back the remainder of her sixth drink and thought about stopping and not going up to the lounge every morning. It took her less than a minute to decide that wasn’t going to happen. She’d be lying to herself if she said she could stay away. And she’d also be lying to herself if she thought she had any chance with him.

So, I’ll just be his friend and help him and lust after him from a distance, she thought. Or maybe lust after him while she sat on his lap and ran her hands over his body. As a friend, of course. Christ, she thought, this was the worst. The absolute worst. And she didn’t even know how to get in touch with Jane to ask her what the fuck she could do to get herself out of this pathetic situation.

Darcy glanced down at the time on her cell. One forty-eight. Had she been sitting here for over three hours? She told the bartender to close out her tab and paid with a hazy head. She couldn’t work out the tip, so she left way too much money. But she could afford it. Tony paid her well. At least she had that much going for her.

She stepped into the elevator and took it up to her floor, looking at herself in the mirrored wall. The dress was not old timey. Or, maybe it was. She’d gotten it at a thrift shop almost a year ago, but never had anywhere to wear the damn thing. The neckline was in a halter style while the fabric was slick, dark red satin with cream polka dots. An extra layer of fabric on the skirt made it puff out, giving her a classic hourglass shape. Yeah, it fell just above her knees and most women tended to go for the leggy look with something shorter, but she still looked great. What a dick he was. She liked the dress just fine. It did amazing things for her tits.

When the doors opened to reveal her floor, she stood in the elevator and stared at the wall. She really didn’t want to go back to her apartment. She wanted to be around people, but not really. She wanted to be around **him**. But he’d left early this morning on a mission to Boston. She’d resigned herself to not seeing him for at least a couple days.

Despite that, she hit the button for seventy-one. Darcy left her shoes by the door and flipped the lights on in the lounge, keeping them dim like she usually did. It was two in the morning and she’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours, but she didn’t think she could sleep if she tried. Too many thoughts were running through her alcohol-addled brain.

“Hey Jarvis?” she said, tilting her head up to the ceiling like that’s where omnipotent computers lived.

“Yes, Ms. Lewis?”

“Can I play music from my phone in here?”

“Of course Ms. Lewis. What may I play for you?”

Tony really did think of everything, didn’t he? Only the best for that jackass. “Shy Girls,” she said.

“You are referring to the band, Ms. Lewis?”

“Yep.”

“Shall I play Timeshare or Salt?”

“Timeshare,” she told him. It was an old EP released three or four years ago. It was also familiar and fit her mood.

“My pleasure, Ms. Lewis.” And then the smooth synth and laid-back funky samples were surrounding her, emitting from speakers that had to have been hidden in the walls. Jarvis adjusted the volume so it was perfect. Just loud enough to hear, but not loud enough to be invasive.

Darcy gathered her hair at the nap of her neck and closed her eyes, falling into the music. The alcohol made her feel slightly out-of-control and reckless. She laughed as she nearly tripped over the couch while swaying across the floor. The music was nice, comforting. And the simmering, sad angst of it fit her mood

She just needed tonight to be upset that she was now one of _those_ women. Those women who had a career, made a ton of money, but had no social life and no romantic prospects. She used to know how to have fun. She used to do spontaneous things like drive halfway across the country for a fucking burger. Now she was trapped in a building in the middle of New York City without any friends and a crush on a guy who was so far out of her league it was embarrassing. And her date—the first one in months—had been a massive disaster. Even though she knew the blame rested on Greg’s stupid shoulders, she still _felt_ like it was her fault.

Was it hot or what? Probably or what. Probably the copious amounts of top shelf gin she'd poured down her throat. Just because it was mixed with grapefruit juice didn't mean it was healthy. She twisted her hair and held it on top of her head with one hand while fanning the back of her neck with the other. She was still swaying to the music with her eyes closed when the door opened. The music was just loud enough that she didn't hear the noise.

When Darcy opened her eyes, she found herself standing across that ornate, ridiculously expensive area rug from Bucky hottie-with-a-body Barnes. He'd stopped in the doorway, his hand still on the knob and his eyes wide.

She wasn't sure if she should be overjoyed or extremely embarrassed or both. The alcohol was fucking with her ability to think logically or care too much about her situation. "Hey, Bucky," she finally said, smiling and letting her hair fall around her shoulders.

He was wearing his tactical gear and looked like he'd just gotten back from the mission. Darcy watched as he stiffly shut the door and turned back to face her. "What are you doing?" he asked, looking like a rabbit about to bolt.

Flashing him a wide smile, she threw her arms out to the sides. "Listening to tunes and dancing."

"Are you drunk?" he asked.

"No. Or maybe yes. Definitely yes. Like, one more drink and I'd be throwing up. But I know my limit, so I stopped. What are you doing? You look really good in your... outfit." She waved her hand up and down to indicate his attire. She probably shouldn't have said that. She'd probably regret that tomorrow, but it was okay now.

He did that thing with his lip again. Rolled his tongue out to wet it. "You look really good in your outfit, too."

She looked down at the dress and the way her boobs were pressed in and up to fill out the bodice. The way it cinched in at her waist and flared out at her hips. It was a damn good dress. But why was he talking about it? He wasn't her date. "Thanks," she finally said. "I had a date."

"A date?" His voice was rough and his metal hand was clenched into a fist. She might have a thing for the metal arm. Okay, she might _definitely_ have a thing for it.

Darcy waved off his question. "It was shitty. He was a jerk, and he didn't even like my dress. It's a great dress, right?"

"Yeah. It's a great dress," he said, edging around the seating area to make his way to the kitchen.

"I didn't want to go home, so I came here to listen to music. I had, like, five—maybe six—Greyhounds. Like, the drink, not the dog. Like grapefruit juice and gin. They had those back in the day, right? Like the forties? Anyway, before that I had wine. Maybe two or three glasses. I don't know. Lost count when my date turned out to be a douche and I started knocking the booze back to get through it. But they don’t even give you much wine in restaurants. I mean, really. It’s like such a small serving." She had verbal diarrhea, but she couldn't seem to stop herself as she followed him into the kitchen.

Bucky pressed his hands against the counter, leaning forward into it and hunching his shoulders up around his ears. "He didn't hurt you—touch you—did he?"

"Uhhh, fuck, this is such a good song," she told him when a new track started. She spun in a circle, letting the skirt of the dress flare out around her legs. "What did you ask? Oh, yeah, he touched me."

"What?" Bucky asked, turning his head to look at her. Oh. That was scary. He looked like he had murder in his eyes. Protective much?

"I mean, yes, but no. I smacked his hand off my leg. He didn't really touch me. Like bad touch me. Or good touch me either. Just annoying touching that I stopped. He was a douche," she repeated.

He stayed where he was, hands pressed onto the countertop and his head turned toward her. "Douche?"

"Like an asshole. Jerkface."

"Is jerkface a real word?"

"Of course it is. Jerkface. Jerkwad. Douche canoe," she said, skipping forward and poking him in the left arm. It was just an excuse to touch him.

"I hope you didn't leave the building," he told her.

Darcy poked him again. "No, I was a good girl. The restaurant on the fifth floor is not as good as they make themselves out to be. Do you really like my dress?" she asked, gathering the skirt up in her hands and swishing it around.

His eyes went from her face to where the skirt was revealing her legs and then her to chest. Then back to her face. "I like your dress," he agreed.

"I like your... whatever this is," Darcy said, pulling at one of the straps on the side of his vest, under his left arm. Maybe she'd pushed him too far, but he pulled away from the counter and took a step back while he turned to face her. "Sorry," she apologized with a smile and raised her hands. "Steve said you don't like touching."

"What?" his voice sounded strangled.

"Oh. _Oops._ " She probably should have kept that conversation to herself. "Nothing."

"Has he talked to you about me?"

Darcy wiggled her nose and hopped up to sit on the counter a few feet from him. "He just told me that you don't like the touching. Right after you hero'd me."

"And?" he prompted.

"And nothing. That's it. I didn't want to hear anything else from someone other than you." She paused and then said, "You let _me_ touch you, though."

He looked like he might want to kill her, but not because he was actually angry. It was more like the way she wanted to kill Jane when the woman wouldn't stop working to eat. Exasperation and frustration. "It's difficult to learn how to do that—to have contact with people—when you've been used as a killing machine for decades. Touching makes me uncomfortable."

Darcy pushed out her lower lip in a pout. "If you ever need to practice touching..." Darcy threw out her arms and said, "I'm, like, great at touching. I majored in touching in college. Well, it was actually poly sci, but touching was definitely my minor."

He shook his head and started going through the motions of making coffee. Filling the water reservoir, dumping the grounds into the filter, pressing the right buttons to make the magic happen. She sat there and watched him work next to her. "Coffee will help you sober up," he said.

"I don't want to sober up. I'm in the groove right now. Good music, good company, and we've already established this dress looks fucking bomb."

"I'm not getting that reference," he admitted, leaning his hip against the edge of the counter next to her leg.

"What? Bomb? The bomb, dude. Like, the best ever. You're the bomb, too. You saved my life. You make me the tastiest coffee. You sit with me when I have nightmares and can't sleep. Your eyes are like the most gorgeous eyes ever. You have the awesomest bionic arm. And your ass is..." Darcy pressed her lips together when she realized just how much she was saying. Those things were okay to think, but not to say. Not to him. Jesus H. Christ.

The corner of his mouth twitched up. "Your dress is the bomb," he agreed.

"Right," Darcy said. "Also, can you forget those other things I said? They were not supposed to come out of my mouth."

"Yeah," Bucky told her. "Forgotten. What things?"

"See, you _are_ the bomb."

The coffee smelled so good while she sat beside the machine and watched it brew. He was still standing there in front of it, his hip pressed into the edge of the counter and his eyes focused on her. “What happened to your date?” he finally asked.

She lifted her gaze up to meet his and shrugged. “Nothing in common. I wasn’t even that interested from the beginning, but beggars can’t be choosers. And he was too touchy.”

“Touchy?”

“Handsy. He kept trying to put his hand on my leg.”

“I had my hand on your leg not too long ago.”

Darcy smiled and waved away his comment. “That’s different. I put it there.”

“Why?”

What a loaded fucking question that was. Why, indeed? “Because we’re friends.”

“Because Steve told you I have issues with touching?” he asked.

“Well, no. I mean. Maybe a little. But that’s not the only reason. I did it because I wanted to. And because you didn’t seem to mind. Did you mind? Did I make you uncomfortable? Because if I did, I’m sorry. I just... sometimes I’m in my own head too much and I just... I say things and do things without realizing how it affects other people. I really didn’t mean to...”

“Darcy,” he said, cutting her off. “It’s fine. I didn’t mind.”

“Oh. So, you liked it?” she asked with a grin.

Bucky didn’t answer her. Instead, he poured them each a mug of coffee and handed hers over. “Drink.”

“I’m glad you’re back from Boston,” she said.

"Doesn't mean you can leave the Tower. They're still a threat."

"Not what I said. I _said_ I am glad you're back." Darcy sipped at the coffee, her eyes slipping closed and her head tilting back. "Oh my god, this coffee. Orgasmic."

"You're way too drunk," he told her. "Come on." Bucky took her mug away and sat it on the counter.

"Hey," Darcy protested until she felt his hands on her waist. "Oh, okay," she said. "Let's do the touching things."

Bucky smiled at her and it warmed those icy eyes. "Don't smack me like your date."

"Oh, believe me, I won't smack you. Do your worst," she told him as she rested her hands on his shoulders. "Ooh, this song. I can't even. This song is fucking amazing."

He easily picked her up and sat her on her feet in front of him. Darcy clung to his shoulders and he let his hands linger on her waist. She was feeling bold and slipped a hand up to ruffle the hair on the nape of his neck. "What are you doing?" he murmured when she pressed herself closer and started swaying.

"Dancing. I love this song." Maybe she'd regret this in the morning, but it felt good in the moment and she’d never have the courage to do it without the alcohol. His hands slipped around to hold her at the small of her back. She felt surrounded by him, the kitchen counter behind her, him in front of her. Her fingertips on the tender skin at the nape of his neck always hidden by his hair . The way his lips were just barely parted. The unyielding muscles of his chest and stomach against her body.

As she shifted her weight from one foot to the other in a subtle sway, he started to release the tension he'd been holding in his body. "This isn't dancing," he whispered into the hair on top of her head.

"Mmm hmm, it is. Slow dancing."

"Not how I learned it when I was in school."

"That's because you grew up in the olden days. People dance closer now." The song reminded her of some eighties movie where the slightly awkward outcast girl gets the hot guy. Wouldn't that be nice? It was all softness and synth and horns with a crooning vocal talking about lips and love at first sight.

Bucky sighed and moved the fingers of his right hand up to trail along her spine. She could feel his caress through the fabric of the dress. Darcy threaded the fingers of one hand in his hair and gripped his broad shoulder with the other. He was moving with her, an inch to the right and an inch to the left.

"Thank you for saving my night," she whispered with her lips brushing against the front of the vest he wore.

"Didn't do anything."

"Did too."

"Did not."

Darcy laughed softly, feeling light-headed and drunk on more than just gin. "You're a much better date than Greg from security."

His fingertips were resting right at the spot where her back curved out into her butt, and Darcy would give anything to feel him slip those hands down to grab her ass. She'd probably come right on the spot before throwing him on the floor to have dirty, filthy kitchen sex. Alas, Bucky Barnes was either too much of a gentleman or not really interested in getting her out of the dress because he kept his hands in only respectable areas. Much to Darcy's frustration.

The song was fading out and she wished this could go on forever. When it ended, the room was utterly silent and still. They'd both stopped moving, frozen in place. She was the first to shift, sliding her hands over his shoulders and down the front of his chest. Bucky removed his hands from her and reached up to loosely grab her wrists.

When Darcy finally plucked up the courage to look up at his face, his eyes were closed. Two seconds ticked by, but they felt like an eternity. He opened his eyes. "I have a debriefing in a few minutes. I should go."

"Oh. Okay." She knew she shouldn't be disappointed, but it didn't stop that depressing emotion from sweeping through her.

"You need to sleep."

"Mmm hmm," she agreed. It had been about twenty-four hours since she'd seen her bed.

"I'll walk you to your room."

"Okay." Fuck yes. Please walk me to my room and come in with me and tuck us both into my bed so I can undress you and feel you all over, she thought. Normally alcohol made her flighty and giggly, not horny. But damn if she wasn’t down for him fucking her against the door of her apartment. Or any place, really.

He let go of her and stepped away to empty the mugs and the fresh pot of coffee. Darcy took the opportunity to retrieve her shoes and purse from the floor. On the walk to the elevator and the ride down to her floor his physical presence was overwhelming. He hovered his hand over the small of her back all the way to her door. Darcy pressed her thumb into the keypad and the door swooshed open in front of her.

Come in with me, she thought. Pleeeeease.

He didn’t. Instead, he lightly brushed fingertips over her hair on the back of her head and said, "Goodnight, Darcy."

She turned around to face him, but he'd stepped away to press his back against the far wall opposite her door. She smiled and wished him a goodnight after she thanked him for the dance and the walk home.

He stood there against the wall, fingers curled and clenched into his palms, until the door clicked shut and hid him from her view. She was going to have a massive hangover in the morning, but all she could think about right now was the heat his body threw off and they way he looked like he was on the verge of pushing past her into her apartment. Darcy opened the door, half expecting to see him still standing in the hallway. He was gone, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're all amazing! Thank you for the encouragement and kind comments. My muse loves the happy thoughts. Also, if you're curious about the song referenced in this fic, you is "Under Attack" by Shy Girls. You can listen to it on YouTube [RIGHT HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x-DkCkE82A).


	6. Chapter 6

> _“I wanna let myself go there. I’d like to know if it’s the way I dream about. Can I be the one you tune your heart to? And can I be the one you shoot your eyes to?” - What If I Can (Shy Girls)_

Darcy needed hydration and Advil, but couldn’t seem to find the will to roll out of bed and retrieve them. Her head was pounding and her mouth felt like she’d stuffed it with cotton. She didn’t remember how she’d gotten to bed, but she did remember how she’d gotten to her apartment. Bucky Barnes had escorted her there like the classiest motherfucker who ever lived. And, much to her disappointment, he didn’t even try to invite himself inside. Because he doesn’t like you that way, you idiot, she told herself.

And all that after she’d said so many regrettably embarrassing things that revealed too much about what she thought of him. Before she’d groped him while dancing in the kitchen. Fuck. She pressed her face into her pillow and groaned.

It took her thirty more minutes of wallowing in angst and embarrassment before she could get out of bed, swallow three Advil—because she really needed those Advil—and guzzle a tall glass of water direct from the tap while standing at the kitchen sink. Then she closed the blinds to shut out the morning sun and went back to bed. Darcy fell into a deep sleep in less than five minutes.

She woke again just after noon feeling a little more human, but no less embarrassed. After a very hot and very long shower, she pulled on a pair of leggings and an oversized hoodie. With her hair clipped up in a bun on top of her head, she took the elevator down to the first floor to get something to eat. There was a little place that served greasy burgers to building employees, and that sounded just right after her night of drinking.

A bit of a scene was happening over by the security desk at the entrance, but the burger joint was just past the elevators on the west side of the building and she didn’t need to pass by the small cluster of people.

She sat on one of the barstools and waited for her takeout order while having flashbacks of last night. Of his hands on her hips and his breath ghosting over her hair while they did that awkward, swaying dance in front of the coffee machine. How fucking weird could her life get? Lusting after a former assassin hopped up on super soldier serum with a bionic arm who happened to be BFFs with Captain America. Christ. The thing that made it worse? That it wasn’t just lust. She actually liked the guy. _Like_ liked the guy.

The bartender handed over a brown sack with her burger and fries. She clutched it in her fist as she made her way back to the elevator.

“Darcy?”

She wished she could sink into the floor and disappear when she turned around and saw Steve Rogers walking up to join her at the elevator bank. He was in a pair of pressed khakis and a polo shirt. Tan skin and perfect blonde hair with not a strand out of place. How disgustingly all-American. She felt like a toad with her greasy takeout bag. “Hey, Steve,” she said, trying for bright and cheerful, but not making it there completely. “What’s all the hubbub over there?”

“We were rearranging shifts. Don’t worry. I’ve got everything under control,” he told her. “He won’t be allowed back in the building.”

She widened her eyes. “Wait, who? Are you talking about Bucky?”

“What?” Steve asked, his brows furrowing in confusion.

“What are you talking about, Steve?”

“Greg MacMillon. The guy who accosted you last night in the restaurant. He’s been fired. I saw to it myself.”

“Wait,” she said, holding up the bag in her hand. “How do you know I went on a date with Greg? How do you know anything? And why did you fire him?”

“I thought you told Bucky...”

“Woah, woah, woah. I told Bucky that I had a shitty date. Did he say something to you?”

Steve looked like he was out of his depth now. He’d come over with his chest puffed out in pride like he was saving the day. Now his eyes were doing that little shifty thing. She was still majorly confused. “Well, he... We had the debriefing early this morning and he left just after nine. Said he had something to do. I followed him and he...”

“He what?”

Steve looked guilty now. “He and the guard had some words when the guard showed up for work.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Darcy muttered, turning and walking two steps away from Steve. She turned back around and gestured for him to continue.

“I overheard a little. Heard that he’d taken you on a date and tried to touch you against your wishes.”

“Where is Bucky?”

“He’s asleep. We haven’t slept for almost forty-eight hours.”

“Then why do you still look perfect?”

Steve looked down at himself and then back at her, his eyes wide and innocent. “I don’t?”

“Steve Rogers, you know you damn well do. Get out of my sight. I cannot believe you and Bucky fired a security guard because he was a dick to me.”

Steve had the decency to blush in embarrassment. “I’m the one who fired him. Bucky just broke his arm.”

“ _What_?” Darcy would have dropped the takeout bag if she didn't need that greasy burger so badly.

He shrugged. “They got into an... altercation. Mr. MacMillon took a swing and Bucky defended himself.”

“He broke someone’s arm.”

Steve nodded once. “It was a bit overzealous. He’s been reprimanded.”

“I... I can’t even with you, Steve.” She punched the button to call the elevator. “I’ve got a raging hangover, and I cannot deal with you and your BFF right now.”

“What’s a BFF?”

“Bucky.”

“I don’t understand. What do the F’s stand for?”

She stepped into the empty elevator and waved at him before the doors closed. He gave her an uncertain smile and waved back. She sagged back against the wall of the elevator car and sighed. How utterly embarrassing. And maybe a little flattering. Not that Greg deserved to get fired or get his arm broken. But, it felt nice to be cared about.

No. No, she wasn’t going down that road. The two of them were neanderthals running around with clubs trying to warn men away from her like she was some precious little virgin in a tower and it was their job to prevent her from being spoiled. Fuck that noise. Even if it did make her stomach feel a little fluttery that Bucky cared enough to get that mad. Or maybe he wasn’t that mad. Maybe he just relapsed into Winter Solider when Greg came at him.

The door opened on her floor, but she jammed her finger into the button for seventy-nine instead of exiting. Darcy stomped into her office and threw the takeout bag on the desk. She logged in and pulled up the access to the security cameras. While she waited for the server to connect, she pulled out the burger and quickly ate half of it. God, she’d been starving. She’d barely eaten anything last night after having such a shitty time.

So, according to Steve, it happened around nine o’clock at the security desk by the main entrance. The footage was crystal clear and the camera was perfectly placed to capture everything that happened at the desk and the front door. Foot traffic was sparse because it was a Saturday morning and most employees at Stark Industries worked typical business hours. She dug into the fries, which were already cold, while she fast-forwarded the feed.

At nine seventeen, she saw the unmistakable back—wide shoulders, narrow waist, bangin’ ass, sexy stride—of Bucky appear from the bottom of the screen. He was wearing a black hoodie to cover his arm, but she knew him when she saw him. He walked up to the security desk and exchanged words with Greg at the desk. She really wished the video had audio, but no such luck.

Greg stood up and replied, his hands on his hips. Bucky threw his right arm out and pointed back into the building. She could see the tension in his body, the way he was coiled to strike. It shouldn’t make her hot, but it did. Greg threw up his hands and let loose a stream of words.

By then the two other people she could see in the lobby—a second guard at the desk and a man who had just walked in the door—had stopped what they were doing to watch the drama unfolding. Bucky used his left hand to point out the door. She could only assume he was talking because she couldn’t see his face. What she could see was the gleam off his metal hand. She could tell Greg had seen it too because his face changed.

Greg stepped around the desk, his hand on the gun at his waist. Bucky turned around to face him and pulled a badge out of his pocket, flashing it at Greg and his partner before saying something to her horrible date from the previous night. They argued for another moment before she saw Steve walk into the frame from the elevator bank. Steve was obviously trying to play peacemaker, his hands held out to both the men, trying to talk them down.

Bucky’s face, which she could see now, was blank and cold. His eyes were hard and he barked something out at Steve. Probably whatever Bucky thought Greg had done to her because Steve turned to Greg and said something. Greg replied and gestured over to Bucky, pointing at his hand.

Steve shook his head and turned around to ask the group of gawkers—four people now—to move back. It was then that Bucky said something that set Greg off. Greg lunged forward, pulling a police baton out of his belt and brought it down on Bucky. With effortless ease, Bucky lifted his left arm and deflected the blow that was probably meant for his shoulder, right where it sloped up into his neck.

Greg didn’t have a chance to make another blow. Bucky had snatched his arm, twisted it and shoved him to the ground. His movements were frighteningly efficient and fluid. He stood over Greg’s prone body as the security guard cradled his arm and presumably called for help. Steve reached for Bucky and Bucky stepped back, his hands raised, palms facing forward up by his face. He and Steve spoke for a moment and then he stepped out of the frame.

Steve gave orders and within five minutes paramedics were pushing through the glass doors of the building to attend to Greg who was still running his mouth. Darcy stopped the video and polished off her fries. She was torn. She didn’t like the macho moves over something that she had completely under control. But Bucky hadn’t initiated the violence and he could have done way worse than just break an arm. Plus, it felt good to know that he cared enough to go out of his way to defend her. Even her old boyfriends wouldn’t have done that. To be fair, her former boyfriends weren’t superheroes with extensive knowledge of how to efficiently kill people.

She picked up her phone and called Steve. When he answered, she said, “Does Bucky live with you?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Where?”

“Here. In the Tower.”

“Where?” she repeated.

Steve sighed. “Look, Darcy, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to...”

“Where, Steve.” It wasn’t a question any longer.

“Room seventy twenty-three,” he said.

“You home?”

He sighed again. “No.”

“Is he?”

“Darcy.”

“Steve.”

“Yes, he’s home. He was asleep.”

“Thanks, Steve,” she told him before hanging up.

She drank an entire bottle of water from Tony’s mini-fridge before she tossed the trash and rode the elevator down nine floors. Her annoyance over the macho man routine hadn’t ebbed yet and she didn’t want it to. She made a fist and pounded three times on the door. After a few seconds, she gave two more knocks. A fraction of a second after the last knock, the door jerked open to reveal Bucky.

He was in a pair of sweatpants, but his chest was bare. So were his feet. It was obvious he’d been sleeping. “Darcy?” he asked, his metal hand gripping the door. She almost forgot why she’d knocked. He looked gorgeous, and she hadn’t realized how perfect his body was underneath those shirts. Fuck.

“Darcy?” he asked again.

“I saw the stunt you pulled in the lobby this morning. Not cool, dude.”

He looked shocked, his blue eyes wide. “What?” he asked her.

“Breaking jerkface Greg’s arm? Getting him fired? Ring a bell?”

“I... He treated you poorly.”

“And I had it under control. I don’t need you and Steve going around protecting my honor. The guy was an asshole, not a threat.” Her hands were on her hips and the more she talked, the more she remembered why she was here. His bare chest might have thrown her off at first, but she could recover with the best of them.

“Oh...” He looked lost, completely clueless. It made her feel bad for him. And just like that most of her anger and embarrassment just drained away.

Darcy stepped forward and slipped past him into the apartment. “Did he hurt you when he hit your arm?” she asked, casting her gaze over the bachelor pad of a living room. A leather sectional dominated the space with a flat screen TV on the only available wall. There were two sad little throw pillows lying haphazardly at the bend in the sofa.

When she looked back at Bucky, he tilted his head in question. “Did he hurt me?” His brows raised in question.

Darcy laughed softly. “Yeah, dumb question. He did hit you with a baton, though.”

“Takes more than that.”

“I bet,” she told him. “Nice place.” Darcy poked her head into the dimly lit kitchen. There was a large plastic container filled with protein powder on the counter beside a bunch of bananas, but that was the extent of the decor. Men. So spartan.

He shifted, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s Steve’s. I’m just staying here until...”

When he trailed off, she looked over at him. She’d been avoiding that because he was currently making it difficult for her to breathe and think coherently. “Until what?”

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “If you ask Steve, then it’s until I get better. Whatever that means.”

“You seem pretty okay,” she told him.

He was rubbing the back of his neck and looked super uncomfortable. “He wants me to be like I was. Before.”

Darcy leaned her shoulder against the kitchen doorway. “That’s unrealistic. Everybody changes. What you go through in life changes you. I’m sure people who knew me freshman year of college would say I’ve changed. Doesn’t mean it’s for the worse. Although, in my case it might be.” She flashed him her best self-deprecating smile.

Bucky laughed softly, dropping his gaze and letting his hand slide down from his neck to his shoulder and then down his chest. Sweet baby Jesus. What a chest. It was so impressive and she was so focused on his flawless, golden skin that she nearly didn’t see the rough scarring at the place where skin met the prosthetic arm.

“Can I see?” she asked, pushing herself off the doorjamb and crossing the few feet between them.

“The apartment?” he asked. “This is about it. Other than the bedrooms.”

“Your arm.”

He shifted uncomfortably and gave her a soft smile. “I’m starting to think you have an obsession with my arm.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Me too.” The skin around the prosthetic was thick, ridged and pitted with white and red scarring. It didn’t extend more than an inch or so from the metal plates, but it looked like in the past it was something that had caused him real pain. “This looks like it hurt,” she said, gently running a fingertip over the seam of his skin and the metal plates.

“It did.” His voice was a whisper as he breathed out.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered back. Darcy didn’t know what else to say.

“You don’t have a reason to be,” he replied, looking down at her, but not really seeing her. His eyes were distant, looking or remembering somewhere else outside of the room they were in.

Darcy laid her hand on his left arm, wrapping her fingers around the metal bicep. “Can you please not break the arms of jerks unless I ask you to?”

He looked down at her hand on him. “Sure. Unless they’re trying to kill you. And then I can’t make any promises.”

Smiling, she said, “Deal.”

“If it makes you feel better, we can say I broke his arm because he tried to hit me.”

“Did you?”

“No, I broke his arm because he made you sad.”

Darcy felt her chest ache. It was such a stupid thing to do, but his heart was in the right place. She’d never felt more important to anyone in her life, and the realization was shocking. She was an only child and often wondered why her parents even bothered. They were disgustingly in love with each other to the point that Darcy had frequently felt like there was no room for her. She was just a third wheel. She’d had a decent number of boyfriends during college, but none of them were all that serious and most of them just wanted someone to hang out with and screw. Jane was Jane. Science her first love until Thor came along. Darcy was just a fun, helpful friend who ordered dinner before everyone got hungry. She was just... around. There. Sometimes she wondered if anyone would notice if she wasn’t. Maybe that was why she tried to go through life so flippantly and carefree. Fake it until you make it.

She got the feeling Bucky would notice if she wasn’t around. As a _friend_. Nothing more. Don’t delude yourself, Darcy-girl, she thought. And she said, “That’s the sweetest and most messed up thing anyone’s ever done for me. But don’t do it again.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t you start ma’am’ing me like Steve.” She stepped back out of his gravitational pull before she made an absolute fool of herself. “Speaking of Steve... have you told him that some artwork and a vase or two go a long way to making a place look more like a home and less like a nineteen-year-old’s first apartment?” Darcy let herself fall back into the middle cushion on one side of the sectional couch.

He stood there, looking down at her, his face unreadable in the afternoon sunlight filtering through the open vertical blinds. “I think it’s safe to say I’m worse at decorating.”

“At least this couch is comfortable.”

“You making yourself at home?” He didn’t seem annoyed. Amused, maybe, judging by the tilt of his head. Darcy decided she was getting better at reading him. Or maybe he was getting better at expressing himself.

“You know it. Also, can we forget half the shit I said last night? I was beyond drunk.”

He stepped over and lowered himself onto the cushion next to her, slouching down and leaning his head back. There were maybe eight inches of space between their thighs. “What shit?” he asked, staring at the black TV screen. “All I remember is you trying to dance and almost falling on your way to your apartment.” When she glanced over at him, she saw the corner of his mouth lifted in an almost-grin.

“Fuck you, Barnes,” she said with a soft laugh. After a long moment of silence, she sighed. “I had the worst hangover this morning.”

“Mmm,” he replied. “Don’t miss those.”

“You don’t say.”

He rolled his head over to look at her, his cheek pressed into the cushion on the back of the couch. A shirtless Bucky Barnes sitting so close with his eyes looking at her like he had no better place to be than sitting there at two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon with her... That was a heady thing. “I take that back. I wish I could still get drunk. Kinda miss it. I’ve had a few days where it would have been real nice to just... black out.”

“It’s overrated,” Darcy told him. “I told myself this morning that I was never drinking again.”

“Is that right?”

She smiled at him. “It’ll be right for a couple weeks. Then all bets are off.”

That earned her a soft chuckle from him as he turned his gaze back to the TV. “That sounds familiar. I might have made that promise to myself a time or two back before... all this.” He lifted his right hand, the one closest to her, and waved it down his body.

“Did I wake you up?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. How’d you know where to find me?”

“Steve,” she said. “But don’t get mad at him. I was really convincing.”

“Pretty girls scare him,” Bucky said dismissively.

The comment almost slid right past her because he’d said it as if it were a fact of life. “Pretty girls, huh?”

He rolled his head to look over at her again, a soft smile on those gorgeous, kissable lips. “Fishing for a compliment, doll?”

“Ooh, are we calling each other cutesy names now, solider boy?”

“It bother you?” he asked.

Darcy smiled. “Not at all.”

The door cracked open and Steve’s head appeared. “Bucky?” he asked.

“Steve, don’t be weird. It’s your apartment,” Darcy called out.

He came in and shut the door behind him, taking in the two of them sitting next to each other on the couch. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

“Well, we’re not currently making out, _dad_ ,” she said, standing up and pulling her sweatshirt down over the ass of her leggings. She did not need the perfect physical specimens up in this apartment seeing her ass.

Bucky smiled, but stayed where he was, looking up at her with those eyes. Those fucking eyes that said everything and nothing.

“Thought I might be interrupting you beating him up,” Steve clarified with a wide smile. He looked mighty pleased with himself.

“Well, you’re not. No more firing my shitty dates,” Darcy replied, walking past him to get to the door. “No more breaking arms.” She directed that comment at Bucky before opening the door and leaving the two men alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More quality time on floor seventy-one coming up in the next chapter. :-) Thank you, all you wonderful people.


	7. Chapter 7

> _“Tell me what you did last night. Did you close your eyes and think about me like I think about you?” -Fruit (Abra)_

On Sunday she woke at three o’clock in the morning feeling like she’d slept for ages. Other than the chat with Bucky, she’d stayed in and slept off the hangover. She washed her face and stared at her reflection in the mirror for a moment, a towel clutched in her hands. It wasn’t such a bad face, really. She’d never had such extreme self esteem issues until she’d started working alongside gods and superhumans. That shit would do a number on anyone, right?

Darcy brushed her hair and swept it up into a ponytail high on her head. Before she left, she almost changed into a matching set of pajamas, but decided that Bucky had already seen her at her hangover-y worst in sweats. The old oversized T-shirt wasn’t flattering, but who cared. It wasn’t like these morning chats were dates or anything. If only.

That didn’t stop her from swiping on a cherry red lip gloss before leaving the apartment. She was glad there was no one around to judge her for the vanity.

Bucky was dumping grounds into the filter when she walked in. He didn’t even look her way as she swept over to him. “Hey,” she said, hopping up onto the counter. He was in a pair of navy sweatpants and a white T-shirt.

“Hey,” he replied glancing over at her before returning his eyes to the coffee machine. A fraction of a second later, she saw his gaze snap back to her. Well, not really her, but her legs.

His attention made her feel good. Mischievous. “What?” she asked.

Bucky raised his brows. “You forget your pants?”

She gave him a wide smile. “No. This happens to be longer than most women’s skirts, so stop getting all nineteen forties on me, grandpa.”

“Wasn’t judging. Just asking if you forgot them.”

“I’m living dangerously,” she answered, kicking out the foot closest to him so she could tap his hip with her toes Before she could touch him, his metal hand flashed down and grabbed the heel of her foot. His grip was gentle, but the swiftness of his reflexes made her gasp. “Don’t you dare,” she told him, trying to pull her foot out of his hand. “I’m ticklish and I will haunt your nightmares if you try anything.”

Bucky smiled and stepped over to stand directly in front her, still holding the foot trapped his left hand.

"Bucky, I swear to God if you tickle me..." she warned him, letting the threat remain unsaid.

He swept the thumb of his right hand up the arch of her foot, the pressure firm and sure. When he repeated the motion, this time running his thumb down the arch of her foot, she couldn’t help the groan as she said, “Fuck, that feels good.”

Bucky shifted his tight jaw. His eyes closed and his head turned to the side so he wouldn’t see her even if he’d been looking. A moment later, he was dropping her foot like it was molten metal, stumbling back an awkward step. He turned away and ran his right hand roughly through his hair until he hit the back of his neck where he absently rubbed back and forth.

Darcy felt a little sick to her stomach. She wasn’t sure what that was about, but it looked like disgust. She let out a nervous huff of laughter and said, “Do my feet smell that bad?”

His back was to her and his shoulders hunched, stiff. “No,” he told her turning around. “I... I shouldn’t be touching you like that.”

“Like what? Like giving me the best foot massage I’ve had in, like, the history of my life?”

Bucky turned and his eyes darted from her dangling feet to her face to the cabinets behind her head to the floor and finally back to her face. He looked nervous or ashamed. “I just... it’s not right.”

She wasn’t sure what that meant. “Ooo-kay. I’m sorry if I pushed you...”

“No,” he said, cutting off her apology. “You didn’t. It’s me... I...” His eyes were everywhere, unable to hold her gaze or stay fixed on one spot.

“Hey, it’s okay. We don’t have to touch each other to be friends or whatever. Water under the bridge, dude.” Yeah, she was a little hurt because she liked the way he felt when he was able to overcome those hangups and touch her, but his discomfort looked so painful that she wasn’t even thinking of herself any longer.

The coffee machine beeped twice to indicate it was finished. Bucky filled two mugs and pushed one across the counter to her. Darcy took it and inhaled the comforting scent of fresh coffee. She felt like it would forever remind her of these mornings with him. She watched the way his muscles moved under his shirt as he walked across the room to stand by the windows. The thought that coffee would now always be associated with him in his room was melancholy and made the center of her chest ache. The physical manifestation of her emotion was startling and made it hard for her to pull in a full breath.

Fuck, she was too deep. This wasn’t what she needed. He had issues and she wasn’t capable of running her own life right now, much less fixing someone. And who said he even wanted to be fixed? Who said he wanted to be fixed by her even if she was able to? The desire to walk up behind him and wrap her arms around his waist, press her cheek against his back... It was almost overwhelming. And it was just as frightening because it wasn’t her. She was light and carefree and jokes and smiles. Or at least that’s what she’d always been. Right? That’s not what he needed, though.

She slipped off the counter and carried her mug over to the chair she always sat in. The spot gave her an oblique view of his profile. From what she could see, his face was impassive, wiped of the nervous emotion she’d seen him struggling with moments before. When he brought the mug up to his lips, she dropped her gaze. The arch of her left foot tingled where he’d touched it. Darcy knew it was all in her head, though. She was just remembering the press of his skin against hers. She turned the foot out and rubbed the big toe of her other up the arch, mimicking the path of his thumb, trying to wipe away the touch so she could stop thinking about it.

She was drinking the dregs of her cup when he slipped away from the window and retrieved the pot from the kitchen. Without even looking at her, he refilled her mug after his and returned the pot. When he came back, he hesitated by his chair for a brief moment, indecision flashing through his eyes. She wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been watching him so closely.

Darcy held her breath while he looked at the sofa and sat down on it, just left of center. She chewed on her lower lip and considered him as he shifted on the cushions, his thighs spread and his right arm resting on the back of the sofa. His mug was held in his left hand and rested on his knee.

She sipped her coffee and considered. Was this an invitation? He lifted his eyes to catch her gaze and the sadness there felt like a punch to the gut. She could survive a little rejection if she was misreading. And if she wasn’t misreading, then maybe he needed this. The quick weighing of risk and reward ran through her mind before she pushed out of the chair and walked in front of him. Gingerly and without a word, she sat down next to him. Instead of tensing up like she’d anticipated, his body language remained open and accepting.

She shifted, angling her shoulders into the spot between his extended right arm and his chest, pressing her thigh against his. His body was throwing off warmth. He wasn’t uncomfortably hot, but pleasantly warm, especially when his arm dropped down on her shoulder and his fingertips fiddled absently with the sleeve of her oversized shirt.

Darcy opened her mouth to say something, but she wasn’t sure how to put whatever she wanted to say into words. And the moment was fine—perfect, really—the way it was. So, she left it alone and settled into his body. He smelled like soap and coffee and felt like heaven. Bucky turned his head and brushed his lips over her hair. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her scalp . And then he turned away again, his eyes staring out the windows.

She sighed and sipped her coffee, turning her gaze out the windows as well. The lights of the city broke up the darkness. In a couple hours the sky would either be a slate gray with the sun fighting to break through or a dull blue if the cloud cover would clear up before sunrise. She just wanted him to stay there with her until it happened.

When they finished their cups of coffee, he took the mugs into the kitchen. She’d drawn hers out, only taking small sips because she wanted him to stay. It was just after four o’clock when he sat back down and slipped his arm around her again. Darcy felt her heart constrict in her chest and her breath catch. He felt so good. _Right._ She was fucked. No man—not a single one of her ex-boyfriends—had made her feel like this. She suspected that no one else could and that was terrifying. Because he was not for her.

They sat in silence like that until five o’clock. His watch beeped on her shoulder, prompting Bucky to pull his arm away and silence it with a press of a button. After a moment of what she could only assume was hesitation, he stood and walked around behind the sofa to leave. Her heart constricted and she bit her tongue so she wouldn’t say something desperate and embarrassing. As he passed behind her, he brushed the fingertips of his right hand over her hair from root to tip. Darcy closed her eyes and listened to the door click shut behind him.

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She spent the rest of that morning wondering where he went at five o’clock every day. She’d always assumed that was just when he was tired of spending time with her, but now she thought maybe he had a standing appointment. Tony called her at noon, complaining about the two interviews he’d promised to do on Monday. She’d rescheduled them twice already, so she went up to his office to tell him that he was shit out of luck and research could wait. He was playing with some kind of glove that emitted an electric blue glow. She still told him that he didn’t have a choice on the interviews, but she made sure to do so from the doorway. Tony’s new inventions had a way of not working quite right the first time around.

Instead of going back to her apartment, she spent Sunday afternoon in her office, returning e-mails from Friday night and Saturday. Just after four o’clock she heard a knock on her door. Looking up she saw Steve Rogers standing in the doorway, looking like he was oh-so-sorry for interrupting her. What a disgustingly nice guy.

“Hi, Steve.”

“Hi, Darcy. Can I come in?”

She gestured to the chair in front of her desk. “Sure.”

Steve sat down and leveled that serious gaze on her. It made Darcy squirm in discomfort. “So, Bucky,” he said.

“What about him?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

He crossed one ankle over his knee and sat back in the chair. “You two seem to be good friends.”

“What are you getting at, Steve?”

“Just wondering how you’re getting along. Bucky’s not really himself.”

“What do you mean? He’s not himself?”

Steve sighed. “He’s not himself since he escaped from Hydra.”

“You mean he’s not himself since he fell off the train,” she corrected.

“Well, yeah. I was hoping if he could talk to people—you, me, his therapist—he’d remember.”

“I think he remembers most of it, Steve.”

“He’d be more like himself, then.”

Darcy shook her head. “I don’t know if that’s possible, dude. I mean, he went through some shit. What makes you think that didn’t change him? Like change him forever. Are you the person you were back in the day—before the serum and all that junk? I’m not the person I was before I found out there are things like Asgard and dark elves and evil gods and anomalies in the fabric of the universe. That shit is messed up. How does it _not_ change you?”

Steve dropped his gaze to the surface of her desk. “I... I just thought maybe if he...”

“I’m pretty sure he’ll never be whatever you remember him being,” she said. “But he’s not bad now. I kinda like him. A lot.”

Steve ran a hand over his mouth, thinking about her comment. “Yeah, I guess I thought he could get better.”

“Isn’t he getting better, though? Not going back to who he was in nineteen-forty-whatever, but getting better like right now.”

He nodded and lifted his gaze to her again. “Yeah, yeah, I guess he is. And I think it’s because of you.”

Darcy shook her head. “I think it’s because I’m someone who didn’t know him back then and doesn’t expect him to be anything but what he is right now. And I’m not a paid therapist who sits there and takes notes. Maybe he just needed a friend who wasn’t trying so hard to make him be someone he’s not anymore.”

“He tell you that?” Steve asked.

She shrugged. “Not in so many words, but yeah. Something like that. Cut him a break. Is he so different now than how he used to be?”

“He’s careful, wary, reserved. He used to be fun and witty and good with the ladies. I want him to have that again.”

The sadness in Steve made her heart hurt. He just wanted his friend to be happy again. He looked like he felt so helpless. “Just let him be who he is, dude. Maybe that’s what will make him happy.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Okay. Yeah. I see what you mean.” He paused. “Has he tried anything with you?”

Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Steven Rogers, you perv. What are you asking?

He had the decency to blush and bow his head. “Just if he’s... tried to put the moves on you.”

She laughed. “Tried to put the moves on me? Jesus, Steve. Are you ever going to join us in the twenty-first century?” He was rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. Darcy took mercy on him and said, “No, I don’t think it’s like that with me and Bucky.”

The comment made him look up at her again, his brows furrowed in thought. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t think we have that kind of relationship. We’re friends.” The words felt bitter on her tongue. She hoped they didn’t sound that way to Steve.

“I think you might be mistaken on that,” Steve said, picking his words carefully.

What did he know? He’d rarely seen Bucky interact with her. He’d never heard their conversations. He was just assuming if Bucky was talking to a girl that he had a thing for her. Maybe old Bucky was like that, but the Bucky she knew didn’t seem to want anything other than to test out his limits when it came to socializing and touching. She was just a friend. “We’re just friends,” she repeated, her voice firm.

Steve nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

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She woke at ten ‘til four the next morning and noticed the message light blinking on her phone right away. Expecting a text from Tony about how he totally couldn’t do the interviews, she was surprised to find a voicemail from a blocked number. It was from just over an hour ago. Darcy turned on the speaker and hit play.

“Hey, I just... wanted you to know we got called out again. To Boston.” Bucky’s voice was rough with sleep, but hushed—soft and intimate. “Don’t know how long we’ll be gone, but I won’t be there this morning. Probably not tomorrow either.” He paused and then said, “Steve gave me your number. So, I’m... sorry for bothering you.” Bucky cleared his throat and wrapped up the voicemail with, “I’ll see you when we get back. Don’t leave the Tower.”

Darcy played the voicemail two more times before getting out of bed. She wanted to call him back, but he was probably on his way to Boston and the number wasn’t registering on her phone. Her mind scattered. She was worried about his safety. Disappointed she wouldn’t be able to spend the morning with him. Curious as to why he’d called her like she was that important to him. Worrying about him won out.

She slipped out of her apartment and entered the empty, dark lounge on seventy-one. Instead of starting the coffee, she laid down on the sofa and pulled her knees into her chest. Her heart felt so heavy and tender. Darcy pulled in a shuddering breath and blinked away a tear that had formed in her eye. It rolled down her temple to soak into the fabric of the cushion. Why did she let it get this far? He’d been a surly asshole a few weeks ago. Now she was sitting here in the dark worried about him. And it wasn’t like she could change things or even help him. He was one of them, not a civilian like her.

She remembered lying on that sofa and chastising herself that morning, telling herself that this wasn’t her—that she didn’t cry over guys. And then she remembered waking up to sunlight streaming in the window. When she pulled her phone out of her pocket, she saw that it was seven thirty-four. She hurried back to her apartment, showered and dressed, and showed up to work just before eight thirty with wet hair and a bad attitude.

Tony was already in his office and from the looks of it, he’d been there all night. She could always tell when he went on his tech-nerd benders because his eyes would get that wild, highly-caffeinated look and he got all fidgety and snappy. “You still have those interviews this afternoon,” she told him, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I have more important things to do, Lewis,” he told her.

“Tough shit.”

He looked up from his desk and narrowed his eyes at her. “You angsty over your boyfriend being outta town already?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend. Do you want me to tell Pepper you’re blowing off the interviews again?”

Tony’s shoulders sagged. “That’s a low blow, Lewis.”

“I’m not above playing dirty. The Atlantic is at one-thirty. I guess you’ll need the conference room since your office is a disaster.”

“Mess is the mark of a genius.”

Darcy gave him a dirty look and walked out of his office. She just wasn’t in the mood for people today. She was having a hard time concentrating on anything but how she was completely fucked up over Bucky Barnes. And how that was a dead end. And how she was terrified he’d get hurt while out on whatever mission he was on.

She marched back into Tony’s office. “What are they doing in Boston?” she demanded.

“Cleaning up the Hydra cell,” he replied without looking up from whatever he was soldering.

“How dangerous is that?”

Tony glanced up at that. “It’s not exactly safe.” She must have been giving him a frantic look because he sighed and took pity on her. “Look, Lewis. He’s a big boy. He knows how to take care of himself. He might even be able to kick my ass.”

Darcy forced a laugh. “That’s not exactly hard.”

“Ha ha, yuck it up,” he said. “He was a weapon for seventy years. I think he’s capable of keeping himself alive.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” She moved to leave, but Tony’s chuckle made her turn back around.

“You two got it bad for each other,” he said with a smile.

Darcy lifted her head and looked down her nose at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You just keep telling yourself that, kiddo.”

She retreated to her office and spent the next half hour frowning at her computer screen while thinking about why Tony and Steve thought there was something between her and Bucky. Was she that obvious? Was her crush—which, she would admit at this point as being a little more than just a crush—that glaringly evident? How fucking embarrassing.

It killed her pride to catch Tony after he finished the second interview just after five o’clock to ask if he’d heard anything about Bucky and Steve. She made sure to tack Steve onto the end of the question. Not that she didn’t care about Cap, but her concern for Bucky was overwhelming. He’d rolled his eyes at her and told her that they were on communications blackout in case Hydra had a way of intercepting.

She dreamed about his death that night. He was hemorrhaging blood on the concrete floor of a warehouse, his blue eyes staring right past her. She spent five minutes standing at her bathroom sink trying to pull herself into reality.

Her coffee tasted like shit that morning and she dumped most of the pot before leaving the lounge at four thirty. It was hard to be in the room without him. Darcy went through the day feeling like there was a weight on her chest, one that made it hard for her to get in a deep breath. After dinner, she tried to watch a movie, but it didn’t hold her interest. She went to bed early and passed out quickly. This time he was standing in front of her, his right hand extended out as if he were going to touch her face. And then his face twisted in pain. She looked down to see a circle of red on his white shirt. The blood seeped into the fabric, growing until it covered most of his chest. She screamed his name in the dream and woke with it on her lips.

Her phone was ringing. I took her a moment to transition from the nightmare to her ragged cry of his name to the vibration of her phone across the nightstand. She fumbled for it and answered without even looking at the screen.

“Hello?” She sounded like hell.

“Hey.” Darcy closed her eyes at the unmistakable sound of his voice.

“Bucky? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he murmured softly. “Are you okay?”

“I... Yeah. I’m okay.”

“You don’t sound okay,” he said.

Darcy sighed. “I just woke up from a nightmare.”

“Tell me about it,” Bucky said.

She shook her head. “No, I’m okay. It’s nothing.”

“Darcy,” he warned her.

“It was about you.”

“Me?”

She swallowed and said, “Yeah. You were shot. I couldn’t help you. I didn’t know what to do and you were bleeding and... and...”

“Hey, doll. It’s okay. I’m here.” His voice was soft, but reassuring. “I’m here,” he repeated.

“Did you get shot?”

He chuckled. “No. I’m bullet-free. Promise.”

“I miss you,” she blurted out. Once the naked admission was out there she couldn’t take it back.

He was quiet for a long moment. So long, she opened her mouth to downplay her confession, to make light of it. She never got the chance because he said, “I miss you, too, doll.” The words were so gentle and intimate that they made heat bloom in the center of her chest.

Silence hung between them for several long seconds before Darcy said, “I thought you were in a communications blackout.”

“We’re almost done. Took out the cell last night and just tying up loose ends. Natalia has an encrypted sat phone. I pulled it out of her bag while she’s walking the perimeter with Steve.”

“Are you breaking the rules for me?” she asked with a smile.

“Bending the rules,” he corrected.

“Well, I’m glad you called. I mean, I know you can take care of yourself and all, but... I worry.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Doesn’t meant I won’t,” she replied.

“Been awhile since someone cared enough to worry.”

“Steve cares.”

“Yeah, I know that punk cares. I mean someone else. Someone who didn’t know me before.”

“Well, I’m sorry to report that you’re stuck with me and all my worries,” she said, laughing softly at herself.

“Stuck with aren’t the words I’d use,” he murmured. “Look, they’ll be back in a few. I should go. You okay?”

“I’m okay now. I’m glad you called.”

“See you soon,” he said, his voice low.

“Bye, Bucky.”

“Bye, doll.”


	8. Chapter 8

> _“Careful, baby what you ask for. I got fire tucked inside me like a matchbox. You know I was doomed to fall in love with you.” - Pleasure This Pain (Kwamie Liv)_

She was shoving her leftover lunch in her bag when Steve walked past her office toward Tony’s. He was in full Captain America gear and looked like he was on a mission. Seeing him meant Bucky must be back as well. She was sitting there thinking about whether she should go knock on his door now or wait until coffee tomorrow morning when she saw Steve step tentatively into her office. The man had a split personality. One minute he was pointing and directing with all the authority in the world and the next he was aww-shucks-ing it in her doorway.

“Did you get all of them so I can breathe fresh air again?” she asked him.

“Yeah, we think we’re good. But, uh, I came to tell you something else.”

The look on his face was serious and her stomach dropped. “What?” she said on a rough exhale.

“Bucky, uh, he got hurt.”

She was out of her chair before she even realized it. “What? Where is he? Is he okay?”

Steve held out his hand. “He’s okay, he’s okay. He’s recovering.”

“What happened?” Her stomach was in knots and her throat was constricted.

“We were wrapping up the mission early this morning and didn’t realize we’d missed a team of Hydra operatives at a second location. Most of our men were unarmed when they hit us. We lost two agents and Bucky was shot.”

Darcy almost choked. “Shot?”

“Nicked his right lung. Doc patched him up, but it’ll still take him a couple days to recover.”

“You mean a couple weeks or months, right?”

Steve smiled at her. “Couple days. He’s tough.” He paused and tilted his head at her. “You can go see him if you want. He’s on fifty-three in an exam room. They’re just making sure he’s stopped bleeding before they release him.”

She said, “Does he know you’re spilling his business everywhere?”

“I don’t think he’ll mind that I told you,” Steve said before tipping his head in her direction and leaving.

She sat down hard in her desk chair. Her instinct was to go to him immediately. But would he want that? He was a private guy. Maybe he wanted to be alone. By the time she worked up the courage to go down there and see him, he’d been released. She went back to her office and folded a sheet of printer paper in half. She penned a crude drawing—something a child would do—of a man in a vest and pants with buckles and straps. She used a red pen to scribble a splotch over his chest. Inside, she wrote, _“Sorry you got shot. Don’t do it again or I’ll be really upset with you. Love, Darcy.”_

Love, Darcy. She’d written it without even thinking. Before all this mess, before holes in the universe and life-threatening situations. Before Bucky. Before all that, she’d thrown love around like it wasn’t all that meaningful. She loved burgers and milkshakes and a really good comedy movie. She loved Jane and Thor and their adorably epic relationship. She loved late nights and good company. Couldn’t she just leave that in the card without it being a thing? She’d written it in pen after all.

So, she left it as-is and dropped the card into an envelope with his name written in capital letters across the front. And with as much sneak as she could manage, she taped the envelope to the door of the apartment he shared with Steve.

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The next morning she woke at three thirty. After washing her face and running a brush through her hair, she ventured up to seventy-one in just her oversized T-shirt. Darcy kept telling herself that he wouldn’t be there. He was recovering from a gunshot wound. He was probably in bed.

Except, when she opened the door, he was standing in the kitchen, his hip pressed against the edge of the counter as he waited on the coffee to brew. The door clicked shut behind her and he looked up to meet her gaze.

“Hey,” he said. “Thanks for the get well card.”

Darcy took quick, long strides over to where he stood and slipped her arms around his waist. Bucky’s arms went out in surprise. “Is this okay?” she asked with her face pressed against his chest.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” he answered, wrapping both arms around her. The contrast between them felt only slightly odd. His prosthetic arm was unyielding, but his flesh arm was no slouch in the firm department because it was basically all muscle. His right hand was lightly touching her hair and the tips of his metal one pressed gently into the small of her back. For someone who wasn’t too good with the touching, he was really good at giving hugs.

“No more getting shot,” she told him.

“I’ll do my best, doll,” he murmured into the top of her head.

Reluctantly, she pulled back and he let her go, his arms hanging at his sides. “You don’t look like you got shot.”

He raised a brow. “Well, _you_ look like you forgot your pants again.”

Darcy looked down at her attire and shot a hand out to smack him in the chest. His impossibly toned, gorgeous chest. “Fuck you,” she told him when her hand connected.

“Ouch,” he grunted, grabbing the spot she’d hit. Oh shit, Darcy thought. He’d been shot in the chest and there she was hitting him in the same spot.

She immediately felt like the scum of the earth, reaching out a hand, stopping just shy of touching him. “Oh my god, I’m sorry. I’m... I forgot... I didn’t mean. Jesus, did I hurt you? Do you need me to call...” She stopped talking when she saw that twinkle in his eye, that lift at the corner of his mouth. “Are you faking?”

“Just a little,” he admitted.

“Jerk,” she muttered, stepping back and hopping up to sit on the counter while they waited for the coffee. “When you called me that morning... Is that what caused... everything?” She’d been thinking about it since Steve had told her what happened.

Bucky shook his head once. “No. We were sloppy. All our intel said there was only one location. We didn’t realize they were broadcasting to a second group off-site until it was too late.”

“So, I can continue my guilt-free existence?”

He gave her a sweet smile. “Yeah.”

Darcy pointed at his chest. “Did it hurt?”

“What do you think?” Bucky asked.

“I don’t know. You’re the macho man that beats up security guards.”

“Of course it hurt.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“Little bit,” he replied.

She scooted forward on the countertop. “Can I see?”

“You trying to get me out of my shirt, doll?”

“Damn, you’ve found me out,” she said with a grin.

He stepped over to stand in front of her and lifted the hem of his T-shirt, revealing a flat, toned abdomen. She licked her lips and swallowed hard. A few more inches revealed a patch of gauze to the right of his nipple, almost over in the area where his chest curved into this side. Without a word, Bucky used his right hand to lift the tape and pull down the gauze patch down.

The wound was ragged, but almost round. It was bigger than what she thought a bullet would make, but she could see it was already healing up nicely. Steve was right. In a couple days it would probably just be a fading scar if he kept on healing so quickly.

“Not so bad,” Bucky told her, pressing the tape back into place and dropping his shirt.

He was close, his hips almost touching her knees. She wanted to shift herself, widen her legs so he could step in between her thighs and wrap his arms around her again. Wouldn’t that just feel like heaven? That mouth of his pressed on her neck while she wrapped her legs around him. Fuck yes.

“Darcy?” he asked.

“What?” she said, snapping out of her daydream.

“I said you should take some self defense classes. And change your appearance if you start going outside again.”

How embarrassing. She was so gone on lusting after him that she was no longer hearing the words coming out of his mouth. “ _If_ I start going out again? Oh, I’m going out again. I’m going to celebrate by running laps around Central Park.”

Bucky raised his brows. “That right?”

“Walking laps around Central Park,” she corrected. “Or walking around the block. Or maybe just walking to the hot dog cart down the street. For starters, I mean.”

“Steve will teach you self defense, you know,” he said. “If you ask him. He’s good at that stuff.”

The coffee machine beeped and he moved over to fill their mugs.

“Why can’t you teach me?”

His shoulders tensed. He could blank out his facial expression pretty well, but wasn’t so good at controlling his body. “No formal training in self defense,” he said.

“So?”

“I don’t want to risk... risk having a flashback with you.”

She scrunched her nose up. “You seem like you’re doing pretty well. I’m not afraid of that. Besides, I’m more comfortable with you than Steve.”

He let out a rough, breathy laugh and pushed her mug over to her. “First and last time I ever hear someone say that.”

“What? That I’m more comfortable with you? I am.” She sipped at her fresh coffee. “I know you better than him. If anyone is going to fake choke me, then I want it to be you.”

“Darcy, I... No. I can’t do that. Ask Steve. He’s good at it.” He walked away and moved over to the window.

She followed him and sat down in the middle of the sofa. After a long moment, he joined her and settled in so their legs were pressed together. He slipped his right arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his body.

“Promise me you’ll talk to him,” he whispered into her hair.

“Yeah, okay. Fine. Can I bring my taser?”

“Whatever you want, doll.”

They sat there and drank their first cup. Darcy poured refills and they finished their second cup in silence. The sun was coming up earlier as they moved further into spring. His watch beeped at five o’clock and he pulled away from her. She wanted to ask if he had a hot date every day at five AM, but thought she might sound jealous. She wasn’t jealous. Unless he was hanging out with another girl. And then she would totally be jealous. She’d want to cut a bitch.

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The next morning she found him standing in front of the windows his hands on his hips. The coffee was already brewed and sitting in the pot. When she walked in, he turned around to look at her.

“Did Greg try to get you to leave the building?” he asked.

Darcy was expecting a hello or a how-ya-doing, not a question about her pathetic date a week ago. “What do you mean?”

“Did he ask you to go to another restaurant?”

“Umm, yeah. Yeah. A place a few blocks away. He seemed a little annoyed that I didn’t want to go. Why?”

Bucky walked over to stand in front of her. “We found encrypted communications between him and a Hydra agent.”

“ _What_?” she said, trying to wake her brain up so she could have this conversation.

“They were going through the server we found in Boston and found messages to and from him.” Before Darcy could open her mouth, he held up his left hand. “He’s not an operative for Hydra, but they offered to pay him to get you to go on a date. Paycheck was double of he could get you out the building. He probably didn't know what he was doing completely.”

Darcy knew she should be more concerned with the fact that Hydra was gunning for her, but really she was just mighty pissed and embarrassed that the first date she’d had in months had been a rouse to kidnap her. “What the fuck? That was a pity date?”

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t think assisting in an abduction is called a pity date.”

“Well... Well, I’m glad you broke his arm. He deserved it. Jerkwad.”

He smiled at her. “I seem to remember you yelling at me for my macho behavior.”

“I didn’t know he was trying to get me killed. Just thought he was an asshole. I formally retract my complaint over your behavior.”

“You need to be more careful,” he said, stepping around her and moving into the kitchen.

Darcy followed him. “Did he know who you were?”

“He’d been told not to engage me, but to make a scene and get the police involved if he saw me.”

“What the hell were the police going to do?” she asked.

Bucky filled their mugs. “Nothing. They monitor the police bands. They’d probably come in like they were NYPD and try to take me into custody.”

“What. The. Fuck. This is... Didn’t security catch wind that one of their own was playing footsie with Hydra?”

“He wasn’t talking to them prior to being hired. He’d worked here for two years before they even approached him.”

“We need better security personnel, then. What a douche,” she said, taking the mug Bucky offered her. “And he wasn’t even that good at it. Like, they couldn’t find someone who was a little more charming?”

She walked over to the sofa and plopped down on the center cushion. He slipped in right beside her and pulled her into his body. Nice and comfy. She wasn’t paying that much attention, though.

“He didn’t even want to go out with me. I did my hair and makeup and wore that dress for nothing,” she muttered.

Bucky’s lips brushed lightly over the top of her left ear when he shifted to make himself more comfortable. “If it helps,” he said, “I saw you that night and I appreciated the effort.”

“Yeah?” she asked turning her head to look at him.

“Mmm, hmm,” he agreed.

The way he was looking at her made the blood rush to her face. She was probably imagining it, though. Yeah, definitely imagining that heat in his gaze. “Well, I’m glad someone got to see my fancy dress.” She paused. “Although, I’d really appreciate if you didn’t remember anything else about that night, including but not limited to: my drunken confessions, my drunken dancing, my terrible drunken flirting....”

“Woah, woah, woah,” he said, stopping her. “I missed the drunken flirting. When did that happen?”

“It was probably all over the place. And obviously not done very well if you didn’t even know it was happening,” she replied, sipping on New York City’s best coffee.

His chest rumbled with a deep chuckle. It made her want to crawl into his lap and rip his shirt open from hem to neckline. Maybe slip the waistband of his sweats down so she could wrap her hand around his...

She could feel her face heating with a flush and her breath picking up. Bad Darcy. Bad thoughts.

“Did you ask Steve about self defense lessons?”

“Not yet.” she admitted.

“Do it.”

“Will you teach me how to shoot?” she asked, turning to look at him.

After a moment of consideration, he said, “Yeah, sure. Whatever keeps you safe.” She turned back to look out the window and he pressed his lips to her hair. “Will you promise me you’ll ask me or Steve to go with you if you want to leave the Tower?” The puff of his breath gave her chills and did _things_ to the juncture of her thighs.

“I thought you got them all.”

“Can’t be too safe,” he said.

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Steve was in Tony’s office. They’d been arguing for thirty minutes. Tony called it “listening to Rogers bitch” and Steve called it “having a discussion.” Different perspectives, she guessed. Darcy just called it two grown men having a pissing contest.

Steve, being the goodie-two-shoes he was, stuck his head in her door on his way out. “Hi, Darcy,” he said with a smile.

“Just the person I wanted to see,” she told him with a grin of her own.

“Oh, yeah?” he asked, stepping inside.

“Bucky said I need to learn how to kick men in the balls, so he said I should talk to you.”

Steve opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “Wh--what?” he finally said.

“He said you can teach me to do the self defense thing. I guess he’s too afraid I’d kick his ass to do it himself.”

“He told you about the security guard you went on a date with,” Steve stated.

“Yep,” Darcy agreed.

Steve inclined his head toward Tony’s office. “Tony didn’t want you to know.”

“Tony can take a long walk off a short pier. I don’t want to be in the dark. And I want to be able to help myself. I’m ready to do the thing. Learn the karate moves or whatever the hell you guys do. I even have my own taser.”

“No tasers,” he said. “But, yeah, I can teach you the basics. Tomorrow morning at six? Not too early, right?”

“I’m an early bird nowadays, didn’t you hear? Six o’clock, where?”

“The private gym on the seventieth floor. Turn left when you get off the elevator, turn the corner and it’ll be on your left.”

“It’s a date, Cap.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s a date.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more than halfway done! I hope you're all still enjoying. Thank you to all the lovely folks who have left me a comment of compliments or encouragements. I heart ya'll!


	9. Chapter 9

> _“I agree when you say you’re confused. When you feel like you, you can’t have this. I’m not playing along. I agree when you tell me that you’ve never felt anything quite like this.” - Under the Influence (Snoh Aalegra)_

Darcy couldn't imagine starting her morning any way other than under Bucky Barnes' arm with a fan-fucking-tastic coffee in her hand. It’s amazing how quickly you become accustomed to something to the point of feeling like you can’t live without it. It was in those moments that she tried to shut down her brain and stop thinking about all the negatives. Like how they were from two different worlds. Like how he was looking for friendship and healing and she was having sex dreams about removing his clothes. She'd take the sex dreams over the nightmares any day of the week, though. Last night she'd dreamt of lying in bed with him and running her hands over his body. Dream-Bucky had scattered kisses over her mouth, face, neck and chest while she scored lines down his back with her nails. She'd woken, gasping for breath with a moan on her lips, when her dream-Bucky had pressed two fingers into her.

And here he was, sitting next to her with no clue that her thoughts were so filthy and depraved. Probably no clue that she was in lust with him. Certainly no clue that she was so fucking close to be in love with him that it was terrifying. But that was crazy. Even for her. She pushed it all down, buried it, and closed her eyes as she concentrated on the weight of his arm and the steady rise and fall of his chest.

His alarm went off too soon. Just like the previous morning, she almost opened her mouth to ask him where he was running off to. She didn't, though. It wasn't her business. She'd already crossed too many lines with him, and this was one she was determined not to touch. She had him for an hour or two in the morning; that was all she could have, all she should want because that was all he was willing to give.

The devious side of her wanted to ask him to take her out to dinner so she could leave the Tower. He was the one who'd asked her to take him or Steve. Her luck, he'd pass the responsibility off to Steve, and then she'd have to have a really awkward dinner with Captain America.

Speaking of which, she was supposed to meet Captain Self Defense in an hour. Darcy was _not_ looking forward to trying to fend off a super solider who probably thought she was a pathetic weakling. Why did she even agree to it? Oh, because Bucky Barnes asked her to do it. And even though she'd prided herself on being independent —even a contrarian—if Bucky asked her to do something she had a really hard time turning him down. She was determined to do the bare minimum and survive the morning with at least half her dignity intact.

She rinsed the mugs and set the kitchen to rights before going back to her apartment to switch into workout gear —a pair of loose nylon capri pants with a tank top and running shoes. She made sure her sports bra was full-coverage and heavy duty because she wasn't looking forward to getting manhandled and the girls didn't need to be flying into anyone's face, including her own.

Darcy cracked open the door to the gym at five 'til six and stopped cold. Steve was standing by a weight bench with his hands on his hips looking like he'd popped up out of bed fresh as a daisy. No surprise there. The shock was seeing Bucky in the corner punching the hell out of a little speed bag that was springing back at him as soon as he hit it. Her entrance made him stop and turn around to see who had arrived. Just as their eyes met, Steve said, "Hi Darcy!" in his most cheerful voice.

Bucky looked like he had no idea what to do with himself.

She gave them both a wave and said, "I'm here for my how-to-kick-men-in-the-balls class."

Steve looked over at Bucky. "Why don't you stick around? You could play the attacker so I can give her pointers on her form."

From the look on Bucky's face, he had no idea she was meeting Steve at this time of day. The way it looked to her, Bucky and Steve had morning workout sessions and she was encroaching on one. That fucking snake. Who knew Steve Rogers was so sneaky and underhanded?

"I... don't... She's better off with you," Bucky said, grabbing a towel and wiping it over the back of his neck.

Steve shrugged and said, "Suit yourself. We'll stay over here on the mat if you want to finish up over there."

Bucky's eyes were shifty and he looked uncomfortable, but he was trying to hide it. If she hadn't spent so much time with him then he might have fooled her. She wasn't sure why he was so opposed to helping her learn, why he was pawning her off on Steve. He'd said he didn't want to relapse into Winter Soldier mode with her, but she'd never thought that would be an issue and obviously Steve didn't think it was either.

"I think I'll wrap up and hit the shower," Bucky said, bending over to pick up some weights on the ground so he could replace them in the rack against the wall.

Steve turned to her and gave her one of his Captain America smiles. And then he winked at her and tilted his head in Bucky's direction. What the hell was that supposed to mean? "Defending yourself is going to come down to using your body weight to your advantage. Chances are the guy is going to be bigger and stronger than you. You aren't going to be able to overpower him."

"Or her," Darcy amended.

"Or her," Steve agreed. "But that's not as likely. So let's look at a couple examples of situations you might find yourself in and work on tactics to get out of them."

"Ooooo-kay," Darcy said, watching him walk around behind her. She felt nervous and a little sick to her stomach. She looked over at Bucky, but he was focused on rearranging the weights.

"I'm going to grab you from behind. Chances are someone who is trying to abduct you will come at you this way." He wrapped his arms around her torso, pulling her back into his chest and locking his arms just under her breasts. It was uncomfortably intimate with Steve's mouth right next to her ear. "Bend your knees and drop your center of gravity lower. It will help you stop me or slow me from dragging you backward."

Darcy did what he told her. His arms felt like bands of steel around her and his grip was just the other side of a hug. It was making her anxious.

"Good," he told her. "Now you need to find a way to hit me while I've got your elbows pinned against your sides. What can you do?"

Darcy strained to lift her arms, settling on bending them at her elbows and weakly beating his forearms with her fingertips. "I don't think there is a way to get out," she admitted. "You're holding me too tight. I can't even move."

"Don't play nice. You have to do whatever you can to get free. Try hitting back into my body."

Darcy dropped her arms and made to swing her left hand back to hit him. The position sent her fist into his crotch. She stopped before she touched his loose sweatpants. "Uh, Steve. I... if I do that then I'll hit your crown jewels."

"Exactly," he told her. "And don't just do it once. You need to swing your hand back and hit him as hard and as fast as you can. Three or four times."

Darcy looked up and saw Bucky standing across the room watching her and Steve with a strange look in his eyes. He appeared to be extremely unhappy, almost pissed. "Or I could just ask Bucky for help," Darcy said giving Mr. Grumpy a smile. Bucky didn't smile back, not even a little bit.

"Bucky won't be there to help you. You've got to save yourself," Steve said. She winced and mimed swinging her hand back to hit his crotch. Except she didn't even come close. She was not smacking Captain America in the junk. "Now shift your weight and step on my foot. Hard," he said.

She lifted her foot and touched it to the top of his shoe twice.

"Good. Assuming what you've done has hurt him, his grip will have loosened." He let his grip on her slacken. "Lift your elbows up like a chicken." When she did, it was clear to see how effectively it would break someone's hold.

"Nice," she said proud of herself.

"At this point you need to turn around and do whatever you can to get him on the ground or hurt him. Punch, hit, scratch. Focus on his face. Once he's on the defensive, you can run."

Darcy put her hands on her hips. "What if I want to keep beating him up?"

Steve laughed. "Well, that's not the safest idea. But I like your enthusiasm." He motioned for her to turn around and face away from him. She could see Bucky again and his arms were crossed over his chest, his mouth a tight, angry line. "Let's try again. Remember, drop your center of gravity, hit backward, stomp down, lift your elbows."

Steve's arms locked around her again just as Bucky spoke up and said, "Here, let me."

Steve slipped his arms away and stepped back with his hands on his hips. Bucky walked up to her with that sour look still written on his face. She gave him a weak smile and said, "Hey, you."

"I want you to really hit me," he told her. "I want you to treat this like it's real."

"Dude, I cannot do that. What if I hurt you for real?"

"You won't," he replied.

She turned to face Steve, who gave her a thumbs up right before Bucky grabbed her from behind and pulled her back into his chest. He was rough and so quick that her breath caught at the sudden force. She panicked and flailed her trapped arms, everything Steve had said flying out of her head.

"Drop your center of gravity," Steve coached her. "Bend your knees or he'll pull you backward."

Darcy did her best to follow his instruction, remembering the next thing was to hit Bucky's crotch. She mimed the movement and felt Bucky shake her, his mouth pressed into her ear. "Do it for real, Darcy. You'll never learn if you don't."

She shoved her ass back into him and heard him pull in a sharp breath. "I'm not punching you in the balls, you jerk."

Her struggles only made him tighten his arms around her. "You want out of this then you will."

"Bucky," Steve warned, holding up a hand to stop both of them.

But Darcy was mad now. Where did he get off acting like this, embarrassing her like this? She swung her right hand back like a pendulum into the middle of his spread legs. She pulled her punch at the last moment so her full force wasn't behind it, but the contact was enough to make him grunt in her ear. Her second hit was a bit lighter and the third barely made contact.

She would have had no idea what to do next, but Steve was crouched down next to her, saying, "Stomp on his foot."

She did as she was told, stepping on Bucky's shoe a little harder than she should have. She brought her foot down and tried to twist out of his grasp, only remembering to use her elbows when Steve reminded her. That did the trick and she shook free of him. Darcy knew she was only free because Bucky let her go, though

Her face was red from the exertion and embarrassment. She whirled on Bucky and slammed both her hands into his chest, throwing all her weight behind it. He was unprepared and the shove knocked him back a step. "I thought you didn't want to teach me, asshole," she said, pushing him again. This time he didn't budge. Instead, he grabbed her and twirled her so he could wrap his arms around her from behind.

"Again," he demanded.

She swung her hand back and hit him hard in the crotch, feeling a sick satisfaction at his sharp inhale. Her hand connected again and she could feel a little slack in his arms. Not much, but something. She swung at him a third time before bringing her foot down on his. This time when she lifted her elbows, his hold on her broke.

Darcy whirled around and pressed the palm of her right hand flat on his chest. " _Don't_ ," she warned him against a third trial run.

Bucky curled his hands into fists and watched her. She couldn't read his expression, but his eyes has a tumultuous look to them.

"I thought you didn't want to teach me," she repeated.

"I want you to be able to keep yourself safe. You need to practice for real." He paused before saying, "You did a good job."

"I didn't want to hit you," she said.

"I don't mind."

"You're crazy," Darcy told him.

"He's mad at me for touching you," Steve said from a couple yards away, his arms crossed over his chest.

Darcy shifted her eyes from him to Bucky. Bucky was scowling at his friend. It made Darcy wonder if there was some truth to Steve's comment. And if there was, what did that mean?

“That’s a really fucked up way to get a girl to touch your junk, Bucky,” she told him, pushing him back with the hand on his chest. He reacted quickly, using her arm to twist her around and wrap her up in his arms again. The left one was like a steel band across her mid-section. After having gone through this twice, her shock and discomfort was fading. Now she was all-too-aware of his hard chest pressed against her back and the way his breath tickled the hair behind her ear.

She didn’t struggle at first, too caught up in the way he felt. He moved his right hand on her abdomen when she didn’t perform the steps Steve had taught her. “Move, Darcy,” he whispered in her ear.

Darcy was feeling punchy and raw. She’d thought he didn’t want to teach her and now here he was pressing his hard, hot body right up the length of hers like it was a game. She bent at the waist and the movement pressed her ass right back into his groin. He was doubled over her when she shifted her hips. Maybe she was just trying to get a rise out of him. It must have worked because he jerked her upright and tightened his grip on her. “Don’t fuck with me,” he whispered in her ear. His voice was rough, harsh, breathy.

“Then don’t fuck with me,” she said through clenched teeth. Finally, she relented, moving her hand back and fake-hitting him in the nuts. Her heel grazed over the toe of his shoe twice and she lifted her elbows. He let her, releasing his grip and stepping back.

Darcy turned to face him, adjusting her ponytail. His chest was rising and falling a little harder than she thought was really warranted. It wasn’t like she was a challenge to him. “So, how do I get away if they’re coming at me from the front?”

Bucky blinked twice before her words seemed to register. And then all his training and knowledge kicked in. “Go for his throat to cut off his air supply. You only have a few seconds to surprise him.”

“So, I strangle him?”

“No, you hit him with your arm.” He stepped up to stand closer to her, lifting her right arm with his left hand. Bucky ran a finger along the outside of her arm, an inch down from her wrist to about halfway up her forearm. “Use this part of your arm. Not your wrist or your hand. You’ll break those too easily.”

She brought her arm up to his throat, stopping once she was touching it. “Like this?”

“Put your body weight behind it. You need to damage his windpipe.”

“Jesus, you guys are brutal,” she muttered, stepping back and then stepping forward again. He caught her shoulders as she threw her body into him, pressing her arm into his throat, but not actually hitting him.

“That will put him like this,” Bucky said, bending over slightly, his hand holding his throat.

“And I run?”

“No, you slam your elbow into his solar plexus.” He pointed to a spot just below his breast bone right in the middle of his torso.

“Oooo-kay,” Darcy replied moving to touch her elbow there.

“With your body weight behind it,” he reminded her.

She leaned in and pressed her elbow into his mid-section.

“That will put him back here,” he said, leaning back, his feet in a wide stance as if to keep his balance.

“Oh,” Darcy said. “I see. This is where I get to kick him in the balls.”

Bucky nodded his head once and let her place her hands on his shoulders while she stepped into his body and brought her knee up to his crotch. She stopped when she came into contact with his pants, not wanting to actually beat on his nuts any more than she already had this morning.

“Okay, okay. I think I can do that.”

“The knee will probably bring him down so you can run away.”

"What if I want to kick him while he's down? I mean, if I've got my boots on, I think I could do some damage and he'd never mess with me again.” Her hands were still on his shoulders for balance. They were way too close together. The little cuddle sessions upstairs were safe and sweet compared to the way his body was coiled up and ready to grab her. And she really wasn't opposed to that at all.

"Looks like you've got this under control," Steve said, interrupting the moment.

Darcy looked over her shoulder at him and stepped back from Bucky, who was also stepping away.

"Don't look so smug, Steve," Darcy told him. He looked entirely too pleased with himself for tricking Bucky into taking his place. And yet, in fairness, he didn't have to do much to compel his friend to jump in. Darcy didn't want to think about that. It would just give her some sort of weird hope that Bucky was thinking of her like she was thinking of him. No, he was just being protective like he'd been with Greg, the douche of the century who couldn't charm her out of the building much less her panties.

Steve gave her his innocent look, eyebrows raised and puppy dog eyes. "What?" he asked. "I have a special ops team to train this morning. If Bucky has you under control, then I'll just get a head start."

"Bucky does _not_ have her under control," Bucky said, throwing a towel over his shoulder and tossing a black hoodie into a gym bag along the wall.

She ignored him and looked at Steve, her hands on her hips. "I feel like I'm good. I know how to kick ass from the front and back now."

"One or two more sessions," he told her. "Then you'll be okay."

Bucky was trying to slip out of the room. She called over to him, "Hey, when are you teaching me to shoot?"

He froze and turned. "Whenever you want."

Steve looked back and forth between the two of them, that smug look back on his face.

"You're the super hero with the hectic schedule. You tell me," Darcy replied.

"Tomorrow. When do you get off work?"

"Whenever I want," she shot back with a smile. "Tony's a pushover. How about three o'clock?"

Bucky nodded and opened the door. He looked like he couldn't get out of there fast enough and it was confusing as fuck. One minute she felt like he wanted to jump her bones and the next he couldn't even look at her.

"So," she said once she and Steve were alone. "When am I to report for duty, Captain?"

"Sunday morning, same time?"

"Yeah, sure."

He watched her with his hands on his hips while she pulled the elastic out of her hair and tied up her ponytail again. "I was serious," Steve told her.

"Yeah, I know. Sunday morning at six."

"No, I was serious about Bucky. He was mad at me for touching you."

"Steve, don't be weird. He's just... protective."

"I think it's a little more than that, Darcy."

"It's not like that," she assured him before she left. He just shook his head and let her go.

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Bucky was sitting on the couch with a coffee when she walked in the next morning at four o'clock. She hadn't seen or talked to him since the day before when he'd run away at the tail end of her self defense session. To avoid disappointment, she'd been telling herself that he wouldn't be in the lounge that morning. She was glad he was.

After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she walked over and stood in front of him, her legs almost between his spread knees. His gaze rolled up her body, from her legs to her chest, stopping at her face. "Hi," he said softly.

"Why wouldn't you just teach me yourself yesterday?"

He dropped his gaze to the floor. "Steve has formal training."

"I think you did fine."

"Didn't I scare you?" He looked up at her when he asked that, and she could tell he wanted an answer very badly.

"No. You surprised me. But I'm not a delicate little flower." She extended her free hand out to the side, looking down her body. "Obviously."

Bucky raised a brow. "Obviously?"

"Yeah, I'm not some little waif of a girl who is going to blow away if you breath on me."

"But you _are_ delicate. Compared to me. Compared to Steve. I could throw you across the room."

She rolled her eyes and sat down beside him, settling into her usual spot under his right arm. "You get off on bragging to me about how manly you are?" Darcy asked. "Let me formally note how impressed I am at your super strong muscles and superior fighting skills."

He chuckled softly and turned his head to graze the tip of his nose against her hair. It gave her goosebumps. "Do I get a trophy?" he asked softly.

"You get a prize. I'll cook you dinner one night."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah." She twisted to look back at him. "Don't get too excited, though. I only know how to make lasagna. You're shit out of luck if you don't like that."

"I like that," he said, plucking at the sleeve of her pajamas with his hand.

Did she just ask him out? Okay, so not on an actual date, but it was almost the same thing. She'd offered to cook dinner for him. And he'd agreed. "Tonight?" she asked.

He left her question unanswered for a long time. It had to have been for at least a full minute. She was about to tell him that it didn't have to be tonight when he finally said, "Okay, tonight."

Darcy smiled to herself and shifted more firmly into his body. She felt his arm pull her in a little tighter when she let her head rest on his shoulder. "After my shooting lesson?" she asked him, eyes closed.

"Mmm, hmm," he replied. "Your place?"

"Yep. You remember where I am?"

"Yeah, I remember."

Darcy sat there next to him and tried not to think too hard about everything, including what was going on in his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting close to the end, you guys! Five more chapters after this one! Prepare for some lovin' and some action. :-)


	10. Chapter 10

> _“You’ll be the first one to find the shadows that make the girl you undo. ‘Cause the man that you are is defined by the way that you act in the light. Break or seize me.” - Lights On (FKA Twigs)_

He'd left her in the lounge at five to go workout with Steve. Darcy spent the day alternating between floating on air and thinking she was the biggest glutton for punishment she'd ever know. And she'd known a few. Dinner with him was only going to make her fall harder and faster. And he was complicated, damaged. And out of your league, she reminded herself, so don't let Steve Rogers’ desperate and awkward matchmaking tell you any different.

Just before three o'clock that afternoon, she ventured down to sub level two and found Bucky leaning against the wall outside of a door. There was a black duffle bag at his feet and his arms were crossed over his chest. His hips were angled out and his shoulders were pressed back into the wall. Darcy unconsciously licked her lips. He looked so fucking good in the jeans and red henley.

"Hey, you," she said when he pushed off the wall and opened the door for her. The room was long and narrow with four lanes for shooting.

“Hey, doll,” he replied, following behind her, holding the bag filled with who knew what. The endearment started a glowing, warm feeling in the center of her chest that radiated outward. Doll. It was such an outdated term, but somehow it sounded so goddamn sincere and sweet rolling off his tongue.

Bucky sat the duffle on a table by the door and dug in before handing her what looked like a small set of headphones. Instead of earbuds on the end, it had ear plugs. While she was trying to figure out how to use them, he gave her a pair of safety goggles. She put both on and waited. It wasn’t until he pulled out and opened a black plastic case that her nerves kicked into high gear. She’d been thinking about spending time with him, not so much about how she was going to shoot a gun for the first time.

The pistol rested on foam within the case. It was matte black, not too big, but large enough to be intimidating. He turned to look at her. Darcy tried to swallow her nerves. “Have you ever shot a gun before?”

She shook her head. “No. Gotta admit I’m feeling a little freaked out at the moment.”

Bucky gave her a soft smile. “It’s not as scary as you think. Just need to be safe. Come here.”

Darcy edged closer and stood next to him, looking down at the gun. “It’s easy, right? Point and shoot?”

“That’s the general idea.” He picked the gun up and turned the butt of it up so she could see inside the handle. “There isn’t a magazine in here,” he said before he pulled back the frame of the gun. “This is the slide. You pull it back to chamber a bullet. Chambering the bullet brings it out of the magazine. If you pull the trigger after that, then it will shoot.” He’d locked the slide back so it was open. She could see all the way through the handle and out the hole in the slide. “If you can see through like this that means the gun isn’t loaded. Always treat a gun like it’s loaded unless you’ve checked like this and you know it isn’t.”

Darcy nodded her head. “Okay.” She watched him release the slide and pull the trigger. The gun clicked, but nothing happened. Letting out a breath, she tentatively took it from his hand when he offered it. The weight of it was surprising. “It’s heavy.”

“Yeah, the heavier guns tend to be more accurate,” Bucky said. “Don’t put your finger on the trigger. It’s a bad habit. You only put your finger there when it's pointing at something you want to shoot.” He gently moved her finger and laid it down the side of the gun, just below the slide and against the trigger guard. “Now, point the gun at the floor and use your left hand to pull the slide back.”

She tried, but the resistance was more than she was prepared for. “I think you might be forgetting that I’m not a super soldier,” she said with a smile.

Bucky shook his head. “You can do it. It’s just a little stiff. Use the notches in the slide to grip.”

There were indentations that she’d thought were decorative, but maybe they were actually functional. She tried again, her hands shaking as she pulled back the slide until it stopped. When she let go, it flipped back into place. “What now?” she asked.

Bucky adjusted the gun in her hand, lifting it up so she could see it better. “This,” he said, tapping the back of the gun closest to her, “is the hammer. When you pulled the slide back, it cocked the hammer. You can shoot this gun with the hammer cocked or not. If it’s cocked, the trigger pull will be easy. Won’t have to squeeze very hard to fire. The trigger pull is longer and stiffer if it’s not cocked. That’s because you’re pulling the hammer back and firing the gun at the same time with just the trigger.”

“I thought this was just point and shoot,” she told him. “I didn’t know there were so many rules.”

“Almost done with the rules,” he replied. “Step up to this lane, point toward the target, and pull the trigger.”

“It’s not going to go off, right?”

“No, it’s not loaded. Just want you to feel how the trigger is before we load it.”

The lane was narrow, just wide enough for the both of them to stand on top of one another. He stood back behind her and used his hands to adjust her body. Her heart was pounding, but not because of the gun in her hand. It was more because of him. His foot tapped hers to widen her stance, his hands squaring her hips and then pushing her shoulders forward just the slightest bit.

“You want to lean into it. Don’t lean back or you won’t be accurate. Tilt your balance forward just a little bit toward the target.” He lifted her arms with his hands, pressing his body up against her back. “Finger off the trigger,” he said into her ear. She jumped and pulled her finger away. She hadn’t even realized she’d curled her index finger around it. “Bad habit you need to break,” Bucky murmured, straightening her arms and letting his fingertips graze over the backs of her hands before he stepped away. She immediately missed the warmth of his chest against her back and the strange sensation of his skin against one arm and the metal against the other.

"Do I shoot now?" she asked, looking at the target at the end of the lane. It was a simplistic black outline of a torso, shoulders, and head.

"Pull the trigger slowly so you get a feel for it."

Darcy did as she was told. It felt like she squeezed forever, but there was no resistance, the trigger just slid back with ease. Until it didn't and stopped. She thought it was broken until she put just a little more pressure on it and heard the click.

"Now pull the trigger again. The hammer is uncocked, so it'll be harder this time."

He was right; the trigger gave her resistance all the way back to the click. "So the first shot is easy? And the rest are harder?"

"No, if the magazine is in, then the next round —the next bullet —will kick the hammer back again. The only time you'll have to pull with the hammer back is if you have a round in the chamber and you de-cock the hammer."

"Why would I do that?"

"Safer to carry," he told her, taking the gun out of her hands. "Less chance of shooting yourself accidentally. He carried the gun over to the case and pulled one of the magazines out. It was packed with gold-tipped bullets that looked way too large. He inserted the magazine into the butt of the gun and popped it into place with the heel of his hand before dropping it back out and handing both to Darcy. "Step into your lane before you insert the magazine."

She could feel her palms sweating. "Don't you think I should see you shoot it before I do?"

Bucky guided her into the lane with his hands on her shoulders. "You'll be fine."

"You must be under the impression I am not currently having a very quiet and low-key panic attack," she said.

"You're _fine_ ," he repeated, kicking her foot out to widen her stance again. "Now, put the magazine in. You have to be firm, make sure it's in there good."

If she hadn't been freaking out to the max about shooting a gun, then she could have made a metric ton of jokes about all the double entendres he was throwing out with all this cocking and de-cocking and inserting and firmness. But as things were, she was a little occupied with the deadly weapon in her hands.

"Come on, doll," he murmured in her ear, stepping up to press against her back again. His hands came around and helped her tip the gun so she could insert the magazine. She felt it snap into place.

"What next?" she asked.

"Pull the slide back to chamber your first round," he replied, adding, "Finger off the trigger."

Darcy cursed herself because she couldn't seem to break the habit. It took her twice to pull the slide back. It was difficult and felt awkward, especially when she knew there were bullets in the gun. When she looked down, the hammer was pulled back away from the frame of the gun.

"Now you aim using the sights." His chin was resting on her shoulder and his cheek was almost pressed against hers. God, he smelled fucking amazing. Could she get a perfume that smelled like Bucky Barnes so she could dump it all over her sheets. Sex dreams for days, baby.

"Do I want the one on the front of the gun between the other two on the back of the gun?"

"Yes," he answered, "you want that little dot on the front to be framed by the back sights. That's where your bullet will go."

"Okay. Now what?"

"Squeeze the trigger and keep your grip firm." He pulled away so he wasn't touching her any longer.

Darcy held her breath as she squeezed the trigger, anticipating that moment of resistance that would lead to a bang. When it happened, the tip of the gun flipped up, kicking in her hand. Her grip on it stopped it from flying back. She immediately thought it was strange that it didn't feel worse —scarier or more dangerous. Not that it didn't feel dangerous. It just didn't feel _that_ dangerous.

"Pull again," he told her from a few feet back.

She did so without aiming.

"Keep going," Bucky said.

She pulled the trigger six more times —this time trying to aim —before the trigger no longer worked. She looked down and noticed the slide on the gun was back and being held in place. "I think it's broken," she told him.

Bucky was behind her, one hand on her hip and holding up a second magazine in front of her with his other hand. "You need to reload," he told her with a chuckle. "Press the button on the top of the grip and it will drop the empty magazine. After she'd done that and fumbled the empty cartridge onto the table in front of her lane, Bucky held up the one loaded with bullets.

"But the thingy —the slide —is back," she protested.

"That's okay."

She popped the magazine into place.

"Finger off the trigger," he reminded her. Darcy was starting to get mad at herself for not remembering such a simple thing.

"Sorry," she said.

“Now pull back on the slide. It’ll move just a fraction of an inch and when you let up it will go back into place.”

She did as she was told and the slide popped back into position like it was ready to fire.

Bucky moved his hands to her shoulders and canted her body forward just a bit. "Touching the trigger can be a hard habit to break. You'll get used to it. No touching it until the gun is pointed at something you want to shoot. Ready?" he asked.

"I guess," she told him. At her confirmation, he stepped back so she had room to move.

She wasn't as nervous this time around and was able to focus on aiming the gun instead of just pointing and shooting. After she'd finished, he reappeared to relieve her of the gun and flicked a switch to bring the target closer. It swung to a stop just a foot from where she stood. There were holes scattered over it. Two in the upper right-hand corner just to the right of the target's head, five along the right side further down. All misses. Four of her bullets had hit within the body outline, though. One at the neck, two near the stomach, and one just right of center in the chest.

"How many did I shoot?"

"Sixteen," he replied.

She quickly counted the holes. "Where did the other five go?"

He laughed softly and was standing so close she could almost feel the movement of his chest. "Not on the paper," he told her. "It's okay, doll. You did good."

"It was my first time," she reminded.

"It was. You'll get better. Just need to practice." He walked back over to the table and pulled a box of ammo out of the duffle. He used it to refill the two magazines.

"Is this a girly gun or a serious gun?" she asked, looking over his shoulder.

Bucky stopped what he was doing and looked over at her. "I only use serious guns. It's a nine millimeter like police carry, not a little twenty-two."

"So, I'm like extra awesome then?" she asked with a grin. "Handling such a big gun and all."

He shook his head and smiled back. "I'm very impressed," he told her dryly.

"I know. I could tell."

Handing the gun and a loaded magazine back to her, he motioned to return to the lane. "Take your time and focus on hitting the target. Hold your breath when you fire. And be careful of letting your hand pull the gun to the right when you squeeze the trigger."

She turned her back on him and watched as he sent a new paper target back out into the lane. It was maybe seven yards away. "This isn't as scary as I thought," Darcy told him, adjusting her stance. "You're a good teacher."

Bucky laughed in a sharp exhale and put his hands on her hips to square her to the target and pull her lower body back so her upper body was leaning into the shot. All Darcy could think about was him bending her over the little table in the lane and fucking her from behind. Bad Darcy, she reprimanded herself.

This time things went smoother. She had a better idea of how to rack the slide, what kind of pressure to put on the trigger, and how to aim. After taking her time with the two magazines he'd loaded, she found that all her bullets hit the target. And five of them were clustered in the middle of the silhouette's chest. The others were scattered, some outside the lines, mostly to the right.

"You're pulling to the right when you squeeze," he told her, loading the magazines again. "Focus on keeping the gun still when you squeeze the trigger."

Darcy tried again with a new target and this time eight of her shots were dead center on the chest, two were through the neck three were in the stomach, and the other three were on the right just outside the silhouette. "I feel like I'm pretty good for a novice," she told Bucky.

He gave her one of those warm smiles that made her want to melt into a puddle at his feet. "You did great, doll. You're a natural.". He replaced the gun in the plastic case and said, "Your arms will hurt in the morning if we don't stop now. Takes a lot of muscle control to fight the kick on the gun when you first start out."

She looked at her watch. Almost four o'clock in the afternoon. "You still coming for dinner?"

He shifted, hair hanging down to hide his expression from her. "If you're still having me."

"Oh, I'm having you alright." Darcy cringed at the way she said it and the eagerness in her voice.

He just looked up at her and slung the duffel over his shoulder. "What time?"

"Give me a couple hours to work my magic."

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She put the lasagna in right before she hopped into the shower. She barely had time to dry and style her hair before he was knocking on her, ridiculously prompt at six o’clock sharp. Darcy had decided on a dress. Nothing too fancy. Just a sea green sundress that was sleeveless and showed off her chest. And her legs, though she didn’t love those because they were too pale, especially coming out of the long winter.

She opened the door to find a mouth-watering buffet of man. Bucky was still wearing his jeans from earlier, but he’d changed out of the henley and into a white button-up shirt. It wasn’t tucked in and the top two buttons were undone. All she could think about was helping him with the rest of the buttons so he could take the damn thing off. She was so down for shirtless Bucky roaming around her apartment.

“You look... nice,” he told her, seeming completely out of his element.

Darcy moved aside so he could enter. “Right back at you, Sarge. I didn’t know I rated a change of clothes,” she said, gesturing to his outfit.

“Steve,” he explained. “Tried to make me wear a suit, but I said no.” He was walking the perimeter of her living room, looking at everything like he there was going to be a pop quiz later on her decor.

“Compromised on the shirt?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good. ‘Cause this is not a suit kind of dinner.” She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine. She’d been saving it for a special occasion and if this didn’t fit the bill, she didn’t know what did. “Wine?”

“Sure,” he said, walking over to stand at the island that separated the kitchen from the living area. He leaned onto it, resting his forearms on the marble top. “Wine makes it seem like a suit kind of dinner, though.”

She finished pouring and pushed the glass across the countertop of the island. She was standing opposite of him, the marble expanse separating the two of them. “Beer doesn’t really go with lasagna. Sorry.”

He sipped the wine. She saw his tongue dart out to collect the remnants on his lower lip. “It’s good,” he told her. “Not really an expert at wine. Might have had it two or three times way back.”

“I’m not much of a wine person either. I like margaritas, but... margaritas and lasagna are probably a worse combo than beer and lasagna.”

“I drank eight bottles of wine one night back before Christmas.”

Darcy’s eyes widened at the confession. “Please tell me you nabbed them from Tony’s private collection.”

He dropped his head and chuckled. The way his hair fell around his face made her want to crawl across the counter and kiss him. “Yeah, actually, they were.”

“Why eight?”

He looked back up at her and shrugged. “I was trying to get drunk, feel numb.”

“Did it work?”

Bucky gave her a sad smile. “No. Caught a little bit of a buzz for a few minutes. Nothing two or three beers wouldn’t have done for me back... before...”

Instead of dwelling on the ache in her heart for him, she said, “I’m a lightweight. Although, the night of my fateful fake-date, I was keeping up with the best of them.”

“Doll, you were _drunk_.” That grin on his face was heart-stopping and panty-dropping.

“Just a little,” she admitted. “But, I had like two or three glasses of wine and chased them with, like, seven mixed drinks. I think the bartender just gave me grapefruit juice for the last two, though. Cheapskate.”

His eyes weren’t on her face. When she looked down to where they were, she saw her boobs lying on the countertop, pushing against the neckline of her dress. She wanted to read into it, but knew she shouldn’t. Men looked at her tits all the time. It didn’t mean anything other than men are biologically wired to find boobs attractive. Hell, Tony’s password had been boobies, for crap’s sake.

“Hey, soldier boy, my face is just north of where your eyes are.”

His gaze jerked up, eyes wide. He pushed off the counter and turned away from her, his right hand lifting up to rub the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Not complaining,” she said. “Guys look all the time. I just like to call them on it.”

He turned around and looked at her. “You kinda...” he trailed off and moved a hand back and forth underneath his chest like he was a model showing the grand prize on The Price is Right.

“Display my assets?” she asked with a grin.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Maybe. And I’m not mad you’re looking. I just think it’s fun to point it out.”

“That's not nice of you,” he said, leaning on the counter, mirroring her. Their fingertips were only a few inches apart.

“How so?”

“You get pleasure from making fun of men for looking.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “I prefer to think of it as being mischievous.”

He chuckled. “Ahh, I see.”

They stood there, watching each other in silence. Finally, Darcy tilted her head to the side and said, “How have you been doing?”

“Fine.” His answer was automatic and bullshit. When she raised her brows and gave him a look that she hoped conveyed she didn’t believe him for one hot second, he sighed and said, “Okay. Better than a few months ago.”

“Is your Steve-mandated therapy helping?”

“I don’t know. Don’t really like talking about things.”

She smiled. “And here I am making you talk about things. Sorry.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t mind... with you. It’s different than some shrink picking my brain and trying to find all the faults, the weakness.”

“I don’t think that’s what it’s about,” she told him.

“Feels that way most of the time. Doesn’t feel that way with you, though.”

His admission warmed her heart. She wanted to go over to him and give him a big hug. Something told her that would probably scare him off faster than anything at the moment. “That’s because we’re friends.”

His gaze was steady and intense. “Is that what we are?” Bucky asked.

“Of course. We’ve been friends for a long time, whether you want to admit it or not.” Darcy shifted her weight from one foot to another. “I like to think we’ve been friends since you sulked into my lounge and accused me of stealing it from you.”

“You _did_ steal it from me. Did you know I watched you for almost two months before I got up the courage to walk in there that night?”

“What?”

He chuckled under his breath and dropped his eyes to the countertop. Taking a long drink from the wine allowed him to delay his answer for a few moments. Finally, he said, “The first night you went in there, I was annoyed. I had been going there for months and suddenly you were taking it over. I saw you go in right before me, so I went back to Steve’s place. The second night when you got there before me, I was pissed at you. I actually crawled into the ductwork and watched you.”

“What the fuck, Bucky?” The question was softened by the amusement she couldn’t seem to wipe off her face or keep out of her voice.

“After that I broke into Stark’s security cameras and watched you.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to know why you were taking my peace.”

Darcy frowned. “I didn’t know,” she admitted.

“I know you didn’t. I forgave you after I met you that night. When I came in and you sassed me.”

“I didn’t sass you,” she said with a laugh.

“You did,” he replied. “I was worried you’d know who I was.”

That made Darcy laugh again. “I thought you were just some no-name agent. I had no idea I was talking to _the_ Bucky Barnes. Nineteen forties heartthrob extraordinaire.”

“Not any more,” he said.

“Yeah, I know. You’re twenty teens heartthrob extraordinaire now.” She took a sip of her wine before flashing him her best goofy smile. It made the corner of his mouth twitch upwards into an almost-grin. She was going to count that one as a win for team Darcy.

“Lasagna smells good,” he said, changing the subject.

"My lasagna is amazing. But it's the only thing I know how to cook. And I don't make it for just anyone so you better count your lucky stars, buddy."

"Oh, I am. I'm still trying to figure out why you kept talking to me after you found out what I am."

"Who you are," she corrected. "And why wouldn't I talk to you? Your coffee is the best ever. You are great at morning cuddles. You've got that super-awesome bionic arm.” Darcy paused, her voice softening. “You're a great guy, Bucky.” And then she shook her head and gave him a smile. “Why the hell are you friends with me? It's the boobs, isn't it?"

He laughed softly before finishing off his glass of wine. She refilled it while he answered her. "You make me feel like a person. You don't make me talk, but when I do you listen without judging." Bucky looked up at her through his lashes with that sexy little grin curling the corners of his mouth up. "And you wear T-shirts without pants, so that helps your case."

“Those are called nightshirts. They are practically dresses.”

“They’re men’s T-shirts without pants. I’m not complaining, though. If you don’t mind me looking.”

She felt her stomach do a flip-flop at his words. They were said with a grin, the corners of his eyes crinkled up in good humor. It felt like he was flirting. And it was hard to tell herself that he wasn’t when he was giving off the vibe so strongly, when he was pinching the stem of the wine glass and twirling it around while stealing glances at her. If he opened his mouth and said he wanted to fuck her on the kitchen counter, it would have been a dream come true. Darcy had no illusions about exactly how easy she would be for Bucky Barnes. He could do whatever the hell he wanted to her and she’d probably love it and beg for more.

“They’re uni-sex shirts. But if you want to give me some of your men’s shirts to wear to bed, then I’m game.”

His gaze locked with hers. “I can make that happen.”

The oven timer buzzed, making Darcy jerk upright. He was still leaning against the counter, but he looked frazzled and his right hand was balled into a tight fist. Fucking inconvenient timer.

“You wanna refill our glasses while I get our dinner?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, grabbing the bottle of wine and filling both glasses halfway. “Where are we eating?”

“There,” she told him, indicating the barstools on his side of the island as she put the pan of lasagna on the stovetop.

Darcy cut two squares of lasagna and dumped the mangled slices onto a couple plates. It was still too hot to cut, but she couldn’t turn around and have him looking at her like he wanted to fuck her. Because she was so totally down for that and it would so totally ruin everything they had. She knew herself better than to think she could get naked with him and just continue on being buddies. Maybe some women could. Maybe she could have if he was anyone other than himself. But it definitely wouldn’t work that way with him and the way she felt.

She plastered on a friendly, air-headed smile when she turned around and slid the plates across the countertop. There was a fresh loaf of bread she’d had delivered earlier in the day on top of the fridge, so she pulled it down and cut off two thick slices. Darcy carried them over and plopped one down on each of their plates as she scooted onto the stool beside him.

“Sorry, it doesn’t look pretty,” she said. “But I promise it tastes good.”

Bucky cut off a piece, blew on it for a moment —which make her clench her thighs together —and shoveled a forkful into his mouth. “Mmmm,” he moaned, closing his eyes.

She grinned and watched him chew. “Good?”

“You know it is,” he told her before taking another bite. She turned back to her plate, unable to suppress the pleasure at making him happy. After taking a taste herself, she had to agree that it was damn good lasagna.

She was reaching for her bread when she realized his plate was empty and he was draining the rest of his wine. “Bucky, what happened to your food?”

His hair fell over his cheek, hiding his profile from her. “I ate it,” he said.

She gave him an amused smile when he looked over at her.

“What?” he asked. “I was hungry and it was good. First home cooking since... damn, since I don’t know when. Long time. Steve and I don’t know how to cook.”

Darcy reached over to take his plate. “I’ll get you seconds.”

“No, I’ll get it,” he said, placing his right hand on top of hers. His fingers curled into her palm as he pulled her hand away and sat it on the counter. He might have lingered for just a moment, holding her hand. It felt good.

The moment was only that —just a moment. He moved around the island with his plate and refilled it with half the remaining lasagna. After cutting off a slab of bread for himself, he returned to sit down beside her. They ate in silence, Darcy still not quite able to wipe the smile off her face at the little moans of pleasure from him.

When he went back for thirds, she said, “You’re going to be sick.”

“It’ll be worth it,” he said, sitting back down and handing her another slice of bread.

She used it to mop up the rest of the sauce on her plate. “You know I’ll cook for you whenever you want. I’m not saying it’ll be good, but I’ll try.”

“You’re not my personal chef,” he said between forkfuls of lasagna.

“I’m not. But I’m your friend and if this makes you happy, then I’m all about it.”

His shoulders tensed and his fork paused as he was cutting into the last few bites on his plate. “You don’t have to feel obligated to... make me happy. That’s not your job either.”

“I don’t feel obligated. I want to. You have a really low opinion of yourself, dude. Which is fucked up because I thought I told you that you’re the bomb.”

He took another bite, his tongue darting out to gather some errant sauce at the corner of his mouth. “You don’t know everything I’ve done.”

“I’ve probably got a good idea.”

“No, you don’t. I’ve killed people. A lot of them. I’ve shot them, blown them up, strangled them, beat them to death with my fists, broken their necks with my hands. I remember every single one. I live with that every day. You shouldn’t even want me here in your apartment.”

Darcy lifted a hand to rest on his shoulder, sliding it down his back. She could feel his muscles tighten and shift under her fingertips. “I _do_ want you here. And you need to accept that those things you did weren’t you. Someone fucked with your brain enough that you didn’t have a choice. No choice means no guilt.”

“Guilt’s not going away,” he muttered, the last bite of food on his plate forgotten.

She rubbed her hand up the middle of his back and then down. “I know you did horrible things, Bucky. But life’s not so black and white. You didn’t have control of yourself when you did those things. But you have control now.”

“For how long, though? What happens if I lose it again and hurt you?”

“You won't.”

He breathed out a humorless laugh. “You have a lot of faith in me.”

“I do,” she replied, sliding her hand over the crisp, starched fabric of his white dress shirt.

“You shouldn’t.”

She laughed and pinched the ends of his almost-shoulder-length hair. pulling just a bit. “Don’t be so dramatic. You’re a good guy or I wouldn’t have made you lasagna.”

Bucky lifted his left hand and used the metal prosthetic to press her hand against the back of his neck. When he turned his head toward her, his lips brushed against her arm that was resting on his shoulder. The softness of his lips and the heat of his breath made goosebumps breakout on both her arms. His eyes were wary, worried, sad. And there was something else there. Affection? Lust? God, she hoped so. If he just felt a fraction of what she felt… Or maybe it would be an unmitigated disaster that would destroy her.

“You wanna watch a movie?” she asked, slipping her hand out of his grip. Anything to put some space between the two of them right now. He was going to consume her if she didn’t break the spell.

Bucky cleared his throat and shoveled the final bite of lasagna into his mouth. “I should go,” he said after he’d swallowed.

Her heart dropped into her stomach in disappointment. “Are you sure?” she asked, taking her plate over to the sink and rinsing it off.

He followed her, dropping his plate in on top of hers. “Yeah, I... You probably want me out of your hair.”

“Not really. I like having you in my hair.” She turned to face him and smiled, trying to do her best to alleviate all the heaviness in the air. “You don’t have to commit to a movie. We can watch an episode of something on Netflix. Have you seen The X-Files?”

“The what?”

“The X-Files. Classic sci-fi show about two FBI agents and all the crazy paranormal cases that they investigate. Episodes are an hour. It’s not even seven yet. Come on.” Darcy poke him in the chest with her index finger. “Come on, pleeeeeease?”

Finally, he relented and gave her a small smile. “One episode,” he agreed.

“Ha! You can’t say no to me,” she teased, grabbing the bottle of wine and emptying the last bit equally into their two glasses.

“That’s true, I can’t,” he agreed under his breath.

She walked over to the couch and settled into the middle of it. When he sat down beside her, she handed him his glass of wine and bent forward to grab the remote. His right arm went easily around her shoulders and when she sat back she was able to snuggle into his side. A few button-presses later and the first episode of the television show was on.

“You know, I was thinking,” she said during a lull in dialogue. “We should do this more often. Dinner and movies or shows.” When he didn’t respond, she took a drink of her wine and said, “If you’re not sick of me already.”

“I’m definitely not sick of you, doll. Just trying to figure out why you want to spend _more_ time with me.”

“Because I like you and we’re friends.”

“Yeah, friends,” he agreed, draining all of his glass in one go. He sat it on the coffee table. She smiled and handed him hers, which he knocked back as well.

“Still not getting you drunk?” she asked.

“Not in the slightest,” he replied, placing it right beside his. “Watch the show,” he whispered, pressing his nose into her hair. He did that a lot, actually. It seemed innocently affectionate on his part, but made her heart rate shoot through the roof. It made her want to surround herself with him, his body pressing her into a mattress, his stubbly cheek pressed against her face, nose in her hair, hips between her thighs as he thrust into her. Fuck. She swallowed and tried to stop thinking about him in that way. Which was really hard because she was pressed against him from knee to shoulder.

They finished the first episode, and Darcy stopped before the second could start playing. He stood and stretched his arms above his head. The hem of the shirt lifted to reveal a hint of his abdomen above his jeans. Why couldn’t she just do the friends with benefits thing? He’d been kinda flirting with her earlier. Maybe he would be down for it.

She shook her head and stood up. No, even if he was down for it, she’d end up falling for him. Like you’re not already falling for him, she told herself. Pathetic. Cute guy shows her some attention and she’s tripping over herself to get him into bed. No one ever said she made the best life choices.

“I should go,” he said. “Steve’s already teased me enough about having dinner with a woman.”

Darcy laughed and wiggled her brows. “Ooh, who is this woman?”

He walked over to the door. “I think you might know her. About your height, blue eyes, long brown hair, kinda looks like one of those pin-up models from the forties.”

“Pin-up, huh?” she asked, following on his heels.

He turned around to face her and said, “Yeah, body like a coke bottle. Makes it hard for me to concentrate sometimes.”

Darcy opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He’d done what Jane swore was impossible—rendered her speechless.

He gave her a warm smile that had a little bit too much sadness in it. “Goodnight, doll,” he said as he opened the door.

“See you in the morning,” she told him.

“See you,” he agreed.

Darcy stood in her doorway and watched him until he turned the corner toward the stairwell before she shut the door and leaned her back up against it. Since when did Bucky Barnes think her body was distracting? Since when did Bucky Barnes think about her body at all?


	11. Chapter 11

> _“Flesh. I need it. I’m a mess, now. I’m a slave to your flesh. Woman, put me right where I belong.” - FLESH (Miguel)_

He was on top of her, her wrists locked in the grip of his left hand while his right one pinched one of her nipples. Darcy gasped, lifting her hips up. He pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her hard as he wedged himself between her thighs. She said his name.

And then she woke, her legs tangled in the sheets, the back of her neck damp with sweat. The clock said three forty-two in the morning. She kicked off the sheets and went into the bathroom to wash her face. When she flipped on the light, she saw the note immediately. It was taped to the mirror right where her face should have been.

She snatched it off and looked at the spiky script that was endearingly awkward.

_We got a tip on Hydra in Ukraine. The entire team is leaving now. If I don’t come back I want you to know spending time with you was the best thing about these last couple months. Don’t leave the building unless Steve says it's okay. He’ll take care of you if I can’t. Yours,  
Bucky_

What the fuck? What did he mean, if he couldn’t get back? How did the note get in her bathroom?

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, Ms. Lewis?”

“Did Bucky enter my apartment last night?”

“Yes, at six-oh-one in the evening. He departed at seven fifty-eight.”

“And? What about after that?”

“He reentered your residence with an override code at two forty-six this morning.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m afraid that is classified, Ms. Lewis. He and the Avengers are en route to complete a mission.”

Darcy felt like she was going to throw up. She’d never felt so fucking helpless in her entire life. Putting her hair into a bun, she pulled on a pair of leggings and took the elevator to the seventy-ninth floor. The lights were all out and she turned them on as she made her way to her office. A quick check of her work e-mail confirmed what Bucky and Jarvis had said. Tony’s e-mail was short, telling her that he’d been called out. He usually gave her a heads up by e-mail when that happened. She would always come in the next morning and rearrange his schedule if necessary. There was no estimated return time listed.

There was a rock in the bottom of her stomach, a weight. This didn’t feel right. Why did he leave the note?

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, Ms. Lewis?”

“Do you have video of Bucky entering my apartment this last time?”

“I do. I also have video of him inside your apartment. I am only permitted to show that footage to you or to security personnel if a crime were committed.”

“Or to Tony Stark if he asks nicely?”

“No, Ms. Lewis. That is not permitted. Mr. Stark does have a sense of decency.”

“Okay, show me the footage from this morning when Bucky was in my apartment.”

She watched her computer monitor go black and then the footage from the hall camera appeared. Bucky had the note clutched in his hand and he stood in front of her door, his back to the camera for several seconds. Finally, he punched in the override code and entered. The night vision on the interior cameras was surprisingly clear. It was creepy to see her apartment laid out in shades of grey on the screen, viewed by cameras she’d never known were there.

Bucky slipped into her bedroom and stood in the doorway, watching her. She could see her hair spread out on the pillow and one leg that had kicked off the sheet and duvet. He must have stood there for almost five minutes. If it had been anyone else, she would have found it disturbing. Finally, he stepped into the bathroom. There was no camera in there, so the feed of her sleeping was still on the screen. When he came back into the frame, he walked over to stand by her sleeping form.

Darcy held her breath, waiting to see what he’d do. After a few seconds, he bent and brushed his lips over her forehead. He lingered for a long moment before he stood up, turned on his heel and left. Jarvis showed her the feed of him walking down the corridor outside her apartment and turning the corner to the stairwell.

It felt _wrong_. It felt like he was saying goodbye. Why else would he leave the note and kiss her? She called Tony’s cell. No answer. Steve’s cell also went to voicemail. She pulled the trash can from under her desk and hugged it in her lap. She felt like she was going to puke. What was in the Ukraine and why did he think this was a suicide mission?

She spent the rest of the morning trying to search Tony’s files for something that would give her a clue. Darcy didn’t find a single damn thing that would help. She’d even resorted to begging and threatening Jarvis, which was probably the least productive thing she could have ever done. He’d rebuffed her pleas and demands every single time.

Darcy had a wake-up call when the receptionist by the elevator buzzed her to tell her that Tony’s one-thirty meeting had arrived.

“Fuck,” she muttered after she hung up. She was in an oversized shirt with leggings and she hadn’t even brushed her hair. And Tony wasn’t in the fucking country. So much for doing her job.

She took the back stairs down to her apartment and brushed her hair before changing into a pair of black pants and a blouse. And then she almost killed herself climbing seventeen flights of stairs to save face instead of riding the elevator to the waiting area. The vendor created the custom circuit boards for the cell phone Tony was working on. He wanted to know the timeline for production and confirm pricing. It was something she’d been involved in, so she was able to pull up her notes and help the guy before sending him on his way.

After learning her lesson, she cleared Tony’s calendar for the next three days and went back to searching the news wires for happenings in Ukraine. Not a damn thing.

She forced herself to eat a peanut butter sandwich that night, even though she didn’t give a fuck about food. It tasted horrible. She called Tony and Steve before she went to bed. No answer, voicemail. She didn’t leave any messages. Instead, she laid in bed for three hours and thought of all the horrible things that could be happening to Bucky. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed that she found him on a concrete floor, bleeding from multiple knife wounds. She’d tried to pull him up, but she wasn’t strong enough and he couldn’t stand.

Darcy woke up with her face wet from tears. She went up to the lounge with a heavy heart and made coffee for herself. She took two sips from the mug before she dumped the rest out and left the room to wander the halls instead. She’d been hoping that he’d have been there, even though she knew there was no way he was getting to the Ukraine, doing his thing, and getting back in less than twenty-four hours.

She felt isolated and alone with all of them gone. After checking her e-mail that morning, she had a salad for lunch in the cafeteria. It was horrible, and she was on edge with so many people around her.

Dinner was non-existent. She ordered a pizza, but tossed it after eating one slice. Her life was consumed with worrying about him. Wondering if he was okay. What would she do if he wasn’t? She didn’t even want to consider it. The nightmare on the second night was her running from two men who were chasing her with swords. Bucky pulled her out of their path and blocked a sword from hitting her with his arm. The blade cleaved through his prosthetic and lodged into his throat.

“No!” she screamed, waking herself up. She crawled out of bed and into her shower stall, turning the hot water all the way up. After a shower, she forced herself to eat a bowl of oatmeal and go into the office at six o’clock in the morning. No communication from them. Not a single one of them. It had been two full days now. She was feeling more than helpless.

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, Ms. Lewis?”

“Are they okay?”

“Can you clarify to whom you are referring?”

“Bucky.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Lewis. I do not have access to Mr. Barnes’ whereabouts. May I assist with anything further?”

“Fine,” she said. “Is Tony okay?”

“Yes, Ms. Lewis. Tony is well, but currently on a classified mission. I am not permitted to...”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “I know.”

She put her head down on her desk and closed her eyes. When she opened them, it was after eight o’clock in the morning. She’d lost two hours. She went through the motions of keeping Tony’s little empire running in his absence. Making it seem like he was there and just terribly busy. She’d done it before and it wasn’t all that hard. Most things ran themselves.

She ate the leftover lasagna for dinner that night. She’d wanted to save it for him, but if someone didn’t eat it then it’d just go bad. It wasn’t as good as she’d remembered. Or maybe nothing was good now that he was gone. Her worry was starting to morph into anger over him being reckless with himself. Who went out on a mission with the expectation that they weren’t coming back? What a fucking asshole. Making her love him and then leaving like some goddamn martyr.

He died in her dreams again. For the third night in a row. This time he was shot. He was standing in the lane of the gun range in the basement and she’d shot him accidentally when she mistook him for the target. This nightmare was worse than the others because it was her fault.

She woke with his name on her lips and her eyes wet with tears. Another hot, early morning shower and a visit to the lounge. No lights, no coffee. No Bucky. She laid on the sofa in the dark and cried. Sobbed. She felt out-of-control and helpless. It fucking _sucked_.

No e-mails from Tony that morning. She tried his phone again and got sent directly to voicemail. Steve’s phone rang, but eventually shuffled her off to voicemail after four rings. It gave her hope, so she called again. Nothing. She tried the satellite phone number that had called her several nights before when Bucky had used it. Nothing. No ring, just a dial tone and then silence. She searched the news wires for the Ukraine again. Nothing. Why did she have to live in the dark? Suddenly the only friends she had were superheroes who didn’t seem to care about keeping her in the fucking loop.

She skipped lunch and ate a sandwich for dinner. “Jarvis?” she asked as she finished the sandwich. “Is Tony okay?”

“Yes, Ms. Lewis. Tony is well.”

“Could you do me a favor?”

“That would depend upon the favor, Ms. Lewis.”

“Will you let me into Steve’s apartment?”

“I’m afraid I cannot accommodate your request as it is a breach of privacy.”

“Jarvis, I just want a shirt from Bucky’s drawer. That’s all. Just a shirt. He wouldn’t mind. Steve wouldn’t mind. Please, help a girl out.”

“You require clothing?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I order a shirt for you? May I have your size?”

“No, I want one of Bucky’s shirts. You can record me and show everyone if I take anything other than a shirt. Just one shirt.”

Jarvis was silent for a long moment before finally saying, “One shirt, Ms. Lewis. The door will open for you.” Bless his little circuits.

She jumped off her sofa and took the elevator up to seventy. The apartment was dark and quiet. She hadn’t been past the living room, so she was hoping she could tell the difference between their bedrooms. It really wasn’t all that hard once she saw them. Steve’s nightstand was piled up with art supplies and an easel stood in the corner. His bed was made and there were some pictures on the dresser —an older one of a beautiful dark-haired woman, another older one of him and Bucky back in the Howling Commandos days, and a couple more recent ones of the Avengers.

The other bedroom was sparse. Bed, nightstand, dresser. Nothing else. No pictures, no belongings. The bed wasn’t made, and she couldn’t resist the urge to lie down in it just for a moment. The sheets smelled like him. Darcy pressed her face into his pillow and inhaled the scent.

“Ms. Lewis, you did not say you would be sleeping in here,” Jarvis said.

She jumped up and moved to his closet. “I’m not, Jarvis. Just give me a second.” She’d intended on taking a clean shirt, but there were several ones in the laundry basket sitting in the floor of his closet. She picked the red henley he’d had on when they had been shooting. It was perfect.

Stashing it under her arm, she returned to her apartment. She slipped out of her clothes and into his shirt once she was inside. The sleeves fell past her fingertips and the hem of the shirt hit a few inches below her ass. It was perfect and comfortable and bathed in his scent. She curled up in bed and pressed the excess sleeves to her nose and mouth, feeling only a little bit like a lunatic.

If he didn’t come back, then she’d keep the shirt. To remember him. She’d sleep in it until it fell apart. If he didn’t come back. Darcy wiped the tears out of her eyes and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. What was taking them so long? Couldn’t that many superheroes sort out a group of Nazi bullies in less than three days?

She fell into a fitful sleep, waking every hour and shifting around, pulling the shirt closer to her body like it could protect her. At three o’clock in the morning she woke to a bang. Darcy sat up in bed and listened. Three more bangs and they were on her door. She stumbled out of bed and ran to the door. A look through the peephole sent her heart soaring.

She jerked open the door to see Bucky standing there with his left hand braced against the doorjamb. “Bucky,” she said.

“Hey, doll.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, stepping back to let him enter. He looked like hell, like he hadn't slept for days. There was a gash that had been stitched up just below his hairline. And he was favoring his left leg as he stepped across the threshold.

“I’ve been better,” he said, pushing the door shut by leaning back against it. “Did I wake you?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry about it. I’ve been worried about you.”

“You got my note?”

“Your melodramatic note that made me think you were going on some sort of suicide mission? Yeah, I got that one.” She wrapped her fingers around his metal bicep and said, “Come on. Let’s go sit down.”

He let himself be led over to the sofa where he collapsed in exhaustion. She stood in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest.

“That my shirt?” he asked.

Darcy looked down at the red long-sleeve shirt. Fuck. She’d forgotten about it. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. This probably looks really weird.”

“Nah, it looks good on you,” he said, waving away her concern. “Looks better on you than it does on me.”

“I beg to differ,” she told him.

Bucky tried to smile, but it never made it to his eyes.

“Where did you go? What happened? Is everyone okay?”

“Ukraine. Everyone’s okay. Our intel said they had the book.”

“What?”

“After what happened in D.C., Hydra splintered into several different groups. I thought the book got lost. I hoped it got destroyed.”

“What book?”

He shook his head. “The book with my trigger words. The ones they say to....” He trailed off and hung his head.

“Like, hypnotize you?” she asked. “Is that how they do it? They conditioned you to black out if they give you a certain series of cues?”

His shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”

“Why did you go, then? They could have...”

“I couldn’t let Steve and the rest of them do that on their own. It’s my mess.”

“But they could have said the words to you. You could have hurt the team.”

“I made them promise to kill me if I lost it.”

Darcy sat down hard on the cushion beside him, one leg folded beneath her so she could face him, her knee poking into his thigh. “Steve wouldn’t let that happen.”

“That’s why I told Stark to do it. Steve’s too kind-hearted. If I revert back into the Winter Soldier, then I need to be put down.”

“Bucky,” she whispered, her voice breaking on his name, her heart aching for him.

“It’s the truth, doll.”

“Did you get the book back?”

He shook his head, the strands of his dirty hair hiding part of his face. “No. They didn’t have it. Bad intel on the location.” He looked shell-shocked and devastated all at the same time.

“Hey, you’ll get it back. And I’ll help you burn it to ashes when you do. Those fuckers don’t own you, Bucky.” She put her hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

“You want to know my biggest fear?”

“What?” she asked.

“That they’ll turn me back into the Winter Soldier and send me in here to retrieve you. That I’ll hurt you. That they’ll make me hurt you to get to Stark or the others.”

“That won’t happen.”

“It could. It could so easily. I’m a walking time bomb.” He paused and sniffed at his shirt. “And a walking locker room.”

She laughed softly and picked up a strand of his hair. “You can borrow my shower if you want.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“You should. Go on. You already know where it is since you snuck in here a few nights ago to leave me a love note.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but closed it. Instead of saying anything, he pushed himself off the sofa and made his way back into her bedroom.

Once he was gone, Darcy picked up her phone and dialed Steve.

“Darcy?” he answered on the second ring.

“Welcome back, Cap. How’s it hanging?”

“Is Bucky with you?”

“Yep.”

“Good. He got off the jet and just disappeared.”

“He’s borrowing my shower. Can you bring him some clean clothes?”

Steve was silent for moment. “He’s borrowing your shower?”

“Yep. Don’t make it something it’s not. I bet none of you have showered for three days. Make yourself useful and bring your BFF some clothes.”

“What do the F’s stand for?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you when you bring the clothes.”

He showed up at her door in less than five minutes. The water was still running in the shower. Steve handed over a pile of clothes with a grin.

“Don’t give me that look, you perv,” she told him.

“I’m happy for you two.”

“It’s not like that, I told you. We’re friends. No hanky-panky. See,” she held up the clothes. “He’s going to be wearing clothes. Sadly.”

Steve smiled. “What do the F’s mean?”

“Jesus, Steve. Best. Friend. Forever. BFF.”

“Oh. Huh. I like that.”

“Goodnight.”

“Night,” he said with that devious grin back on his face right before she shut the door.

She snuck over to the bathroom and left the clothes on the floor just outside it before knocking lightly and telling him that they were there.

Darcy sat on the couch for ten minutes, chewing on her lower lip while she waited for him. When he finally emerged, he was in a pair of black sweatpants and a white tank, his wet hair slicked back. “Where’d you get the clothes?” he asked.

“Steve. He thinks we’re sleeping together.”

Bucky sat down beside her and sighed. “Sorry about that.”

She turned toward him again, folding the leg closest to him underneath her. “Hey, I’m not complaining. Does wonders for my self esteem that anyone thinks I’m in your league.”

“What?” The question was sharp, and he jerked his head slightly to get a better look at her face.

“Nothing,” she said, waving away his question.

“I think you got that reversed, doll. I’m a mess. No one should want me, especially not you. You’re...”

When he didn’t finish his sentence, she asked, “I’m what?”

Bucky just shook his head. “Perfect.”

Darcy couldn’t hold back the laughter at the thought that anyone could ever consider her perfect, much less Mr. Adonis himself. “You’re funny,” she told him.

“I’m not trying to be,” he told her. “You’re all I think about lately.” The confession was murmured, barely there. But she heard every word clearly. His hands were resting on his thighs, curled into fists.

She let her gaze slide back up to his face, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were closed and he looked so unhappy. He’d been through the ringer in the past few days. And while she didn’t know what it was like to live with the threat of some evil entity taking over her body, she felt for him. He was all she thought about lately, too. Was it mutual? Did he actually want her like _that_? He’d been flirting lately, telling her that he liked what he saw. Maybe she wasn’t alone in her crush. Well, it was more than a crush, but she didn’t really want to think about that right now.

Gathering up the reserves of her courage, she took a deep breath and pushed herself up on the knee she had folded beneath her. With a hand on his shoulder, she swung her free leg over his lap and settled it on the other side.

“Darcy,” he gasped, his eyes flying open and his hands instinctively moving to grip her waist.

She shifted to find a comfortable position straddling his lap. “Hi,” she said, looking down at him.

“What...”

“I’ve wanted to do this for, like, weeks,” she admitted.

He pushed his shoulders back and lifted his hips up so he could slide down further, allowing Darcy to settle herself down on him. She took the invitation and shifted until she was right over his groin, her fingertips digging into his shoulders. “I’ve wanted you to do this for _months_ ,” he whispered, running his hands up her back. “It’s driving me crazy that you’re wearing my shirt.”

“Good crazy or bad crazy.”

“Good crazy,” he said. “You sneak in there and take it out of the dirty clothes basket in the closet?”

She winced. “Yeah, but you make it sound so creepy.”

“Not creepy,” he assured her. “Pretty girl goes out of her way to put my clothes on her body... not creepy.”

“It smells like you,” she whispered. “And I missed you. So...”

“I’m sorry, doll. I wish I could be someone different for you... someone better.”

“I don’t want someone different.”

His hands moved down her back, grazing over her hips before dipping down to slide underneath the shirt she was wearing. “This okay?” he asked.

“Very okay,” she said, leaning into him.

His hands barely touched her skin. The right was warm with calloused fingertips. The left was cooler with smooth metal. His fingers met between her shoulder blades. He glanced down and saw where the bunched up shirt revealed her panties. They were a simple pair of black bikinis. “Fuck, doll. If you don’t want this, you gotta get off me.”

"You're blind or crazy if you think I don't want this."

He dragged his hands down her back and let them rest on her hips. "Why?"

She ran her fingers through his wet hair, detangling as she went. "I've had this massive crush on you since before you saved me. And then when you started talking to me after I almost got shot... it just got worse. I've been..." Darcy smiled and pulled her lower lip into her mouth, chewing on it to stop her confession.

"You've been what?" He looked wrecked, his pupils blown wide and his voice all but begging her to continue.

Darcy laughed softly and leaned forward to press her forehead to his right shoulder. "Having sex dreams about you.”

"Doll, you would be scandalized by how many times I've thought of you. Just now in the shower..."

"In my shower?" she asked, pulling back. "While I was sitting out here all alone?"

"You were in my shirt and your shampoo smelled like your hair. It just... happened."

She shivered as his hands moved around to her ass, his fingertips grazing her upper thighs. "If I'm so perfect, why didn't you ask me to join you? I think I could really appreciate you naked and wet. Like _really_ appreciate."

Bucky chuckled and moved his hands up underneath the shirt to rub circles up her back. "Didn't think I was good enough for you."

"What changed your mind?"

"Nothing. Still don't think I'm good enough, but I'm being the bad guy right now and not caring." He pulled his right hand out of the shirt to cup the back of her head, pulling her closer.

"I like bad Bucky," she whispered. Darcy closed her eyes a fraction of a second before their lips met. He was sweet at first, gentle. His closed mouth brushed against her lips lightly. After the second pass, she opened for him and ran the tip of her tongue against the seam of his lips. He surged up, tilting his head to press their mouths together, this time needy and assertive.

She placed her forehead down onto his when they both pulled back to take a breath. “Sorry,” he murmured with his eyes still closed. “It’s been a while.”

Darcy laughed softly, and angled her head for another kiss. His lips were soft and warm and so inviting. He was just the right amount of tentative and it let her control the pressure at first. When the metal fingers of his left hand squeezed her ass to pull her in closer, she gasped and he took the opportunity to gently catch her lower lip between his teeth. When she pulled back, his lips were wet and his eyes were pools of midnight blue in the low light of her living room.

“You know you just apologized for giving me the best kiss of my life, right?” she asked.

He smiled, this one reaching his eyes. “I’m rusty.”

“I hear it’s like riding a bicycle or something,” she said.

“Or something,” he agreed, using his hand on her head to pull her in for another kiss. His tongue slid along the length of hers and it felt so deliciously filthy that she moaned into his mouth. She felt his fingers curl into her hair at the sound. His left hand was cupping one of her generous ass cheeks, the tips of the fingers dangerously close to touching the crotch of her boring black panties. She wondered if he could feel the difference between skin and cloth in that hand. And then she didn’t wonder anything at all because he broke away from her mouth and moved his lips down her jawline to her neck.

To give him more access, Darcy settled herself more firmly onto his lap. The shift brought the length of his erection right up against her mound. If she pressed closer and rubbed back and forth, she was sure she could get herself off over just the idea of his cock beneath his pants. Darcy dropped her head back when his teeth grazed over the sensitive skin of her neck. He placed open-mouthed kisses from the spot just behind her ear to where her neck sloped out into her shoulder. She couldn’t stop her hips from rolling against and pressing her up into his cock.

Bucky growled and moved both hands back to grab her ass. She gasped and flailed her legs for a moment when he stood up with her in his hands. And then, on instinct, she wrapped them around his waist. The way he stood, bearing all her weight, was smooth, like it required little effort for him to do so with her hanging off him. “Bucky, what the fuck?”

His lips were on the valley between her breasts, his chin pushing the collar of the shirt down to reveal cleavage. He stopped and looked at her through his lashes. “What?” he asked. “I... Do you not... I thought...”

At first she didn’t understand what he was trying to say. The hesitation in his eyes made her realize he thought she was stopping him, putting the brakes on their make-out session. The idea of was so ridiculous that she almost laughed. “Oh, no, no, no...” she corrected him. “You thought right. We’re doing this. I just didn’t realize you were gonna demonstrate your ability to manhandle me into the bedroom by acting like I weigh nothing. Kinda took a girl by surprise.”

He turned and stepped over to the hallway. Her hands were gripping his shoulders and her legs were tight around his waist, but she didn’t even need to worry because his hands on her ass were enough to keep her steady against him. “Did I impress you?” he asked in a teasing voice as he stepped into her bedroom.

Before she could answer, his tongue was tracing the inner curve of her left breast. “You have done nothing but impress me since day one,” she replied, moving one hand off his shoulder so she could slip her fingers into his damp hair.

“That’s a lot to live up to. I’m outta practice,” he said, leaning down and dropping her onto the bed. He came with her, wedged between her thighs, his mouth moving up to her neck again. It was better than all those fantasies she’d dreamed up. His hands were underneath the shirt, pushing it up her torso The weight of his body felt like heaven because it was _him_ and it was _real_.

“You’re doing pretty damn good here, Sarge.”

He chuckled and lifted up off her to pull the shirt over her head. Darcy raised her arms to help him and held her breath. With normal guys she wasn’t so self-conscious, but Bucky was... physically perfect. And that was intimidating.

He knelt between her legs and ran his hands up her sides before cupping her breasts—one in each hand. His eyes followed his hands as he moved them down the valley between her tits, over her stomach, finally tracing the waist of her panties with his fingertips. “Doll,” he whispered, his voice breaking on the endearment. And then he was on her, his body pressing her into the mattress and his lips hard against hers in a desperate kiss. “You’re like a fuckin’ wet dream,” he whispered in her ear.

His confession emboldened her to move her hands between them and slide them up underneath the shirt he had on. He lifted up and jerked it over his head, revealing his chiseled chest and stomach. She heard his sharp inhale when she pressed her right hand on the center of his chest and let it slide down. By the time she got to the waistband of his sweats, she was just touching him with her fingertips. Darcy slipped the tip of her index finger underneath the waistband.

“Gotta warn you,” he said, looking down at her prone body. “Steve didn’t give me underwear.”

Her smiled cracked into a full-out laugh while he descended on her again, sucking on the skin of her neck before moving his mouth down to her right nipple. “Two things,” she said through labored breaths. “One—that would have been a very pleasant surprise. And two—I had no idea Steve Rogers was such a deviant.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Bucky murmured, looking up at her from between her breasts. “You twenty-first century girls got to him.”

She couldn’t respond even if she wanted to because he was dragging his tongue up the middle of her chest, nipping at her chin, and then kissing her until she thought she might be able to orgasm right then and there.

Darcy lifted a foot and tried to use her toes to push the back of his sweats down. He finally raised up and took mercy on her by helping take them off. He twisted between her legs and managed to shuck the sweatpants. She saw them fly across the floor in her periphery, but most of her attention was focused on the dark thatch of hair between his legs and the most perfect, mouth-watering cock she’d ever seen. “Jesus...” Darcy muttered, no doubt staring at him like she’d never seen a naked man before.

He wrapped his right hand around himself and Darcy was embarrassed to say she might have actually licked her lips. “You need to stop looking at me like that,” he said, stroking himself.

“It’s kinda hard not to look at you like this. You’re... wow.” Darcy moved to sit up and reach out for him, but his left hand on her shoulder pushed her back down.

“You can’t touch me. I’ll... that’ll be it.”

“Oh. Like never touch you or like just now?”

Bucky laughed under his breath. “Like just now. No one has touched me like that since nineteen forty five and if you put that pretty little hand on me right now then it’s game over.”

He worked his fingers underneath the hips of her panties and pulled them down as she said, “Kinda feel like I’m popping your cherry all over again.”

Bucky didn’t reply or laugh at her joke because his eyes were focused on the spot between her legs as he slid her panties over her knees. She lifted her legs up and helped him pull them off her ankles before settling her feet on either side of him again. He rolled his tongue out and wet his lower lip, running his upper teeth against the plump flesh while his eyes stayed riveted to her lady-parts like they were the first he’d seen.

She opened her mouth to break the tension, pull his focus away from her spread legs because she was suddenly a little self conscious being naked in bed with Bucky fucking Barnes. Whatever she was going to say morphed into a strangled gasp when he bent over her and started planting little kisses all over her chest and stomach, making his way to the juncture of her thighs.

“Bucky,” she begged. “You don’t...”

He left a lingering kiss just below her belly button and looked up her body at her. “Oh, I want to, doll. I _need_ to.”

He pressed his open mouth against her slit, slipping his tongue out to enter her just the slightest bit. Darcy couldn’t stop the jerk in her hips, the way they canted up toward him. He curled his forearms around her legs, his fingertips digging pleasantly into her inner thighs as he spread her to give his mouth more access.

“Oh fuck,” Darcy moaned, spearing her fingers into his hair and holding his mouth against her as he fucked her with his tongue. He moved his mouth up to tease her clit, circling it. She was so focused on that sensation that she didn’t realize he’d moved his left hand and was pressing the middle finger of the metal prosthetic inside her. It was too much. The pressure, the unyielding metal, knowing it was attached to him, his warm and pliant lips sucking on her clit like it was a piece of candy, the tip of his tongue nudging it from side to side.

“Bucky,” she moaned, curling her fingers into his hair and lifting her hips up. The orgasm exploded and crashed over her like a wave. “Oh my god,” she said on a sharp exhale. “Oh, Bucky.”

When she looked down at him, he was still between her legs, his finger still inside her, but he was looking up at her face. “I felt you come,” he said in wonder. He curled the metal finger slightly before pulling it out and lifting up onto his knees.

Bucky watched her with those gorgeous blue eyes while he licked his finger like a lollypop. She sank her teeth into her lower lip as she saw him swipe his tongue over the tip of his middle finger. He looked completely lost in the moment as he leaned down, hands braced on either side of her head, and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. She could smell and taste herself on him. Darcy reached up to cup the back of his head, deepening the kiss. "I want you inside of me," she whispered against his lips when they were both pulling in a breath.

"This feels like dream," he admitted, ghosting his lips over her cheekbone before taking her mouth again.

"I'm going to be so fucking disappointed if this is just another one of my sex dreams about you." Darcy shifted beneath him. "If you don't move then I'm going to make you move."

He let out a breathy laugh and reached down to line his cock up. She could feel the head of it slide over her sensitized clit and between her lips. Darcy lifted her hips in impatience and he rewarded her by thrusting in and up. She was so wet he slid all the way home in one smooth stroke. His thickness ripped a ragged gasp from her throat.

Bucky was still, his cock seated all the way in her and making her feel like a second orgasm was just a brush of his fingers away. He pressed his forehead to her shoulder and pulled almost completely out before flexing his muscles to thrust back into her willing body. His labored breath was hot against her neck. The stubble on his cheek and chin rubbed against the sensitive skin there and on her jaw. He pulled out and pushed in again. Each stroke was delicious, but he was restraining himself. He was shaking with the effort.

Darcy ran her nails lightly down his back and then back up to his neck. She took his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. His eyes were half closed and he looked drunk. I did that, she thought. "Bucky, it's okay. It's me."

He let out a ragged groan and fell on her, his hips moving frantically. His moans were smothered by her lips as he gave a final shuddering thrust and came so hard she could feel the jerk of his cock deep inside her. "Darcy," he murmured in her ear as he slipped his forearms beneath her back. "Doll."

He rolled them so she was sprawled on top of him, slipping out of her in the process.

"I'm sorry," he said between labored breaths.

"What the hell are you sorry for?" she asked. Her limbs felt like jello, all wiggly and wobbly. She rested her chin on his sternum, waiting for an answer.

"That. I shouldn't have..."

"Shut your fucking mouth," she said, cutting him off. "I wanted that more than you did, and it was everything and more, hot stuff."

"You did not want that more than me, doll." He gently started untangling her hair with his right hand while his left thumb drew circles on her hip. The way he was playing with her hair was hypnotic. She laid her cheek against his warm chest and closed her eyes. He was here. Safe. In her bed. _Naked_ in her bed. It was perfect and more than she could have asked for.

"Can we have sex instead of coffee in the morning?" she asked him.

He didn't reply for a long moment, but she was too deep in the relaxed afterglow to worry about it. "Go to sleep, doll," he whispered, brushing her hair away from her face.


	12. Chapter 12

> _“Shotgun to the back of my heart. I don’t turn around to see that one ring out. Said you’d never do me wrong. Guess we’ll see how that one plays out.” - Green Mile (SZA)_

She'd heard hindsight is twenty-twenty and even known it to be true for herself on certain occasions. Those occasions usually involved asshole ex-boyfriends. And maybe she could chalk up her current occasion to something similar.

Darcy had woken just after ten o'clock that morning. She wasn't sure when she and Bucky had fallen asleep, but it hadn't been too long after he'd completely wrecked her with his mouth and then proceeded to show her that she was a liar when she'd told Jane she'd never ever have unprotected sex. Like ever. Because she totally did and it didn't even occur to her until she woke and felt that wonderful ache of being recently fucked. It wasn't an emergency because she'd been on the pill since she was sixteen and Bucky had been off the market for decades, but still... Still. Jesus, that was bad.

What was worse? Bucky was gone. When she'd reached over to touch him, she'd found the bed empty. Darcy had wrapped the sheet around her body and held her breath as she walked into the living room. She had been hoping to find him there in the kitchen making coffee or some other dreamboat thing. No such luck. And what made it even worse was that it looked like he was _long_ gone. It made her feel like shit. What the fuck was last night if he could just leave like that without even telling her he had go?

She was late for work. Not that Tony would care. She took a quick shower, washing away all the evidence of her early-morning sex with Bucky, and changed the sheets on her bed. Her brain kept telling her that he might have been called out again. That maybe he was uncomfortable sleeping in a new place. That he was worried about hurting her if he had a nightmare. But her brain was also telling her she was making up lame excuses. He could have woken her and told her goodnight. He could have left a note. A text. Something. There was nothing, like he'd never even been there at all. He'd even taken the fucking shirt of his she'd been wearing.

She dressed and rode the elevator up to her office, trying to ignore the heaviness in her stomach over him jetting like that. She'd had a few one-night-stands in her day and this felt an awful lot like one.

"You get some last night, Lewis?" Tony asked with a smile when she walked into his office with the mail. He looked like he'd just rolled out of bed himself.

Her stomach twisted at his question. "Shut the fuck up, Tony," she snapped, turning on her heel and leaving.

He followed behind her. "Hey, hey," he said, reaching out to grab her arm before she could get to her office and shut the door. "I was joking. Heard Barnes ran to your place as soon as the jet landed."

"He did."

Tony let go of her and held up his hands. "No judgement from me," he said. "You know I don't have room to talk."

"He left."

"Left the Tower?"

"Left my bedroom," she clarified, rubbing the bridge of her nose and turning to walk over to her desk chair.

Tony stood in the door and watched her fall back into it. He sat down on one of the arm chairs opposite her desk. "Ahh, shit, Lewis."

She clicked through her e-mails, but couldn't really read anything. Instead, she tried to focus on not crying in front of Tony Stark, who probably would never let her live it down.

"He's a little fucked up, you know," Tony said. "Fucked up guys do stupid things."

"Takes two to tango, and I think I might have encouraged it."

"You told him to leave?"

Darcy dropped her forehead to the surface of her desk. "No," she told the wooden surface, "I encouraged the other thing."

"Oh," Tony said. "Well, when I say he was doing stupid things, I meant leaving you, not doing the dirty with you."

She looked up at him and gave him a weak smile. "That's sweet, Tony. Like a thirteen-year-old-boy-trying-to-cheer-up-his-sister sweet."

"Yeah, well. Don't let it get out. I got a rep, you know."

"Your soft spot is safe with me. Can we not make a thing out of this? I'd really rather not have the building know I put out and got rejected."

Tony's brows furrowed. "Look, this therapy shit isn't my forte, but I don't think this is rejection. I think he's just messed up and doesn't know what to do. You're probably the first piece of ass he's had since nine-forty-something."

"I take it back," Darcy told him. "You're not sweet. Get out of my office."

"Technically, this is my office," he said, standing up and backing out of the room. "But because I'm a nice guy, I'm going to let you believe that you can kick me out."

"Shut the door," she added.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, doing as he was told.

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It took everything she had not to go banging on his door after work, demanding an answer. Instead, she took two doses of sleep aid and went to bed early. The next morning she decided to go up to the lounge. If he was there then maybe Tony was right and he didn't know how to react to the intimacy. Maybe they could work through that together.

He wasn't there. The room was dark and the sky was black. She could see droplets of rain on the window, blurring the lights of the city. Feeling like she had a brick in her stomach, Darcy made a pot of coffee and sat alone on the couch. It felt strange and wrong without his arm around her. She hadn't even known him that long and here he was dividing her life in half like he meant something more than just a really good fuck.

She sipped her coffee and tried to tell herself that's all he was: sex. Except that wasn't true at all. It was so wrong that she couldn't even accept the lie to save her feelings. It had been a hell of a lot more than just sex. The sex was great, but it was just a sliver of the pie that was their relationship. It had been quiet company in the morning, understanding, soft smiles and blue eyes, protection and safety, the promise of more. And now that was gone and she could only assume it was because he'd conquered her and moved on to the next. And even if she gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he didn't know how to handle what they'd done—even if that was true—it still hurt that he'd thought she wasn't worth the effort. He'd dropped her so easily.

Four days later and she was consumed. She'd tried to focus on work. Tried to forget about the lounge and coffee and him. It wasn't working. Boys had broken up with her in the past and while she'd been hurt before, it hadn't felt like this. It hadn't felt like someone had scooped out her fucking heart with a rusty spoon and left her to die on the floor.

And she couldn't find her fucking underwear—the black pair he'd pulled off her that night. She'd assumed they'd gotten wrapped up in the bedsheets when she'd stripped them the morning after, but when her laundry was returned, they were missing. A little voice in the back of her head made her hope that he'd taken them to remember her. But that was so fucking stupid because she was just a few floors below where he lived. Or at least she assumed he still lived with Steve and didn't ask for a transfer out of the building now that he'd burned her bridge.

Only her pride had kept her from beating on the door and demanding an explanation. Instead, she sat there at her desk and stared at her phone. After picking it up and dropping it back into the cradle twice, she dialed and waited while it rang three times. Finally, he picked up.

"Darcy?"

"Hi, Steve. Tony says I'm still on lockdown and I am losing my mind. Do you think you can put on your bodyguard hat and escort me to get a slice of pizza for lunch?"

He didn't respond immediately. She tapped her fingers on the desk and waited his silence out. "Uhh, yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Today?"

"Unless you have something better to do."

"No, that's... fine. Yeah. I'll come get you around twelve-thirty?"

"See you then," she said, hanging up.

He showed up at twelve-thirty on the dot looking like the hot gym teacher you had in high school when you feel like an awkward freak, but wish you had half a chance. “Hey, Darcy,” he said, standing in her doorway with his hands in the pockets of his Dockers.

“Hey!” she said, trying to act like she was just fine and everything was business as usual. “I hope you like greasy, cheesy deliciousness on New York City’s best crust.”

“Sure,” he said. When she gave him a dubious look, he added, “I _do_ eat more than just veggies.”

She didn’t say much of anything other than commenting on Tony’s new obsession with drone capabilities and speculation on how much the Captain America shield would sell for on the black market.

“I hope you’re not planning on swiping it to make a buck,” he said as they walked into the pizza shop. The place was a dump, but made the best pies. They slid into a beat-up booth along the wall and Darcy ordered a large cheese pizza for them to share. Steve was incognito with a pair of dorky glasses and an old baseball cap. She almost felt bad for him because he tried to make himself small on the off chance he was recognized. It was just hard to make Captain America seem like a regular Joe.

Darcy tried to keep her voice level and nonchalant when she said, “So, how’s your BFF?”

Steve reached out and grabbed his glass of water, taking a couple short sips. Then he cleared his throat. “Uh, not great.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Can I... Can I ask you something?”

She tilted her head to the side. “Sure, but I won’t promise an answer.”

Steve nodded. “Okay, fair enough. I just wanted to know if it was you or him.”

Darcy widened her eyes. “Me or him, what?”

“Well, did you ask him to leave or did he just... leave?”

“Leave? Oh, you mean leave my apartment after we banged? Umm, let me see... Oh, yeah, that was him.” She’d gone into the whole meeting on the assumption that Bucky had spilled the beans to his buddy and Steve knew all about how they’d slept together right before Bucky bailed on her. Obviously Bucky wasn’t giving out the details and was making it seem like it was her fault. Which kinda explained why Steve was acting so cagey.

“I... uh... well... Geez, Darcy.” He was a stuttering mess and it would have been downright adorable if he wasn’t the best friend of that guy who’d shattered her heart like no one before.

“What? Little too real for you Steve? Wish you would have warned me that Bucky was the love ‘em and leave ‘em type.”

Steve shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t... He won’t talk to me about you. At all. I had no idea what was going on, but I thought you two were close.”

“We were. Or at least I thought so.”

“I don’t think you’re wrong there.” Steve drained his glass of water and looked for the waiter to come back and save him. No one came, so he turned back to Darcy. “Look, I really don’t want to betray his confidence, but I feel like you should know. He won’t leave the apartment. He’s been sitting in front of the television for days. Since we got back from the Ukraine.”

“Since he got me naked and bailed,” she corrected.

“Well, I didn’t know that.” Steve looked supremely uncomfortable.

“Steve Rogers, you did everything but smash our heads together like two little dolls being forced to kiss. Don’t tell me you’re surprised that sex happened.”

“He deserves someone like you after everything he’s been through. You’re good for him.” Steve paused when the waiter brought the pizza and put it on the table. They both stared at each other across it. “I don’t know why he did whatever he did. I tried to ask him why he came back to the apartment that morning, but he wouldn’t talk. Two days ago I asked him what happened and he just told me that you and him weren’t going to happen. I thought maybe you put the brakes on it.”

Darcy grabbed a piece of pizza and shoved it in toward her face. The cheese was still hot and burned the roof of her mouth. “I did _not_ put the brakes on it,” she said after swallowing.

“I’m sorry, Darcy. I really am. I guess I was thinking so much about you being good for him that I didn’t think about him being bad for you.”

She felt all her righteous indignation and anger leaving her like air escaping from a balloon. She finished her slice of pizza and watched him finish his. “I’m sorry, too, Steve. I shouldn’t have been so nasty with you just now. I’m just... kinda hurt.”

“What happened, exactly?” he asked.

Darcy picked up a second slice. “You want the play-by-play? Like who took off what when and where he licked before...”

“No!” Steve said, blushing. “No, not that. Just... why did he leave?”

“I don’t know, ask him. It was perfect, amazing. I fell asleep... uh, like, on top of him, maybe?” She winced in slight embarrassment. “And then when I woke up he was gone. No note. Nothing. Kinda like he’d never even been there at all.” She took a couple bites of the heaven-in-a-slice pizza and added, “Although, I think he may have taken my underwear. If so, tell him I want them back because he doesn’t deserve victory panties. Also, tell him he’s worse than jerkface Greg for leading me on and breaking my fucking heart.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Steve promised before draining the second glass of water the waiter had just sat on the table in front of him.

“Please do not argue my case, Steve. I have at least a little dignity. If he doesn’t want me, then fuck him. I’m not begging to be in his life.”

“I’m pretty sure he wants you, Darcy. I think he’s just too scared. He’s got a lot of problems. PTSD, nightmares, and he’s really afraid Hydra will get him again—brainwash him like last time.”

Steve’s comments made her feel like a heel. “I know, I know. It’s just... really fucking hard to protect yourself and care about someone else, dude. I’m trying to stop myself from curling into a tiny ball under my desk and the only thing that’s helping is hating him for being an asshole with the hit-it-and-quit-it.”

“Hit it and quit it?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Steve. You really missed out pop culture over the past few decades, man. Like, having sex with someone and then ignoring them.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that’s what it was called.” He devoured a slice of pizza in less than twenty seconds. Three bites and it was gone.

“That’s what it’s called, among other things.” She washed down her last bite with a long drag off the coke she’d ordered. “Look, tell him I’d like to talk. No pressure. I just want an honest answer on why he jetted.”

“Yeah, okay,” Steve said. “I’ll tell him.”

“And Steve,” she said, “thanks for lunch. It’s nice to get outside. Especially since it feels like spring out here. What is it? Like sixty-something today?”

“Yeah, it’s been nice. Call me whenever you want to leave. I’m happy to take you wherever.”

“I don’t want to be a bother,” she said.

“You’re not. Just call me.”

“Will do, Cap.”

“Don’t call me that, though,” he said with a smile.

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Hope springs eternal, so part of Darcy halfway expected him to knock on her door that night. Steve would have talked to him by then and Bucky would realize that his hang-ups could be gotten over and that his behavior was hurting her. Deep down she knew he wasn't the type of guy to hurt someone on purpose like this. Except, she went to bed at ten without a single knock or phone call.

The next morning she went up to the lounge so sure that he'd be there making coffee. So sure he'd look at her with those sad eyes and apologize for everything. And she'd have forgiven it all, of course. Except the room was dark and empty. She sat there on the couch, alone and feeling stupid.

The next morning that little glimmer of hope was in her heart still, so she rode the elevator up to seventy-one and stood outside the door of the lounge for a full minute before entering. The lights were out and the coffee machine was off. Darcy felt like he'd ripped her heart out again. After all the time they'd spent together—whether it was sitting in silence with their mugs of caffeine or tentative and innocent touches or the way they'd fit together so easily that night in her bed—him not being part of her life was a tough pill to swallow. If she wasn’t in love with the motherfucker then she was damn well falling in love with him. And now he was gone without even the decency of explaining himself. Sure, she could go demand an audience in Steve's apartment where he was hiding, but that just felt a little too pathetic.

The thing that hurt most of all was that she had thought he cared more about her than to leave her hanging like this, wondering what went wrong. Apparently she'd assumed wrong and he didn't care all that much. She sat in the middle of the sofa and cried silent tears while she looked out at the lights of New York City. She couldn't keep doing this to herself. This would have to be her last visit to the lounge on seventy-one. He could have the damn thing back. Fuck him.

Darcy showered and dressed for work, showing up just after seven o'clock. Tony's office was dark so she spent the quiet morning cleaning the junk mail out of his inbox and sorting his important e-mails into appropriate folders. The man was like a child. She had no idea how he'd gotten this far in life. Money, she guessed. And Pepper Potts, too.

Tony waltzed in just after ten o'clock that morning and plopped his ass down in the chair across from her desk. "I changed my super secret password to boobies456 in case you need to hack me again," he said.

"So glad to hear you take security so seriously around here," Darcy replied in her driest voice.

"Come on now,” he said, “The ohs are zeros. I don't fuck around with my passwords."

Darcy tried to smile, but her lips wouldn't turn that way. "Thanks, Tony."

"Look, Lewis, I don't want any rumors getting around that I have a heart. But, are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look like you're fine."

"Then stop looking and give me some space. I'll be fine eventually."

"Want me to evict him and Rogers?" Tony looked serious.

Darcy was able to eke out a smile for him at that. "My hero," she said, "But no. I think I just need to get on with my life instead of continuing the moping."

"You wanna take the Iron Man suit out for a spin? Might cheer you up."

"You're not serious," she said.

He pushed himself out of the chair and shrugged. "Yeah, you're right. But I'll still kick him out of here if you want me to."

"I'll think about it," she said before Tony retreated to his own office.

She worked through the day, skipping lunch like she'd skipped breakfast. Her appetite was just like Bucky: gone. She was okay as long as she was busy. It was the moment she stopped and sat there by herself that she felt her throat closing up and the pressure pushing down on her chest, not to mention the overwhelming loss of him like he'd died. She wished she could take back the sex. It had been amazing, but she'd wipe it out in second if he'd just sit with her and have coffee every morning.

Darcy shoved her debit card in the pocket of her cargo pants and rode the elevator down to the second floor. She left her cell phone on her coffee table in her apartment because she didn’t want to be bothered by work and no one called her for anything but that nowadays. It was just after six o'clock and the sun was close to setting. The flatscreen in the corner of the cafeteria was silently broadcasting the news, the captions running across the bottom of the screen just above the weather report. It was sixty-five outside. She looked out the window and remembered her lunch with Steve a couple days before and how nice the warm breeze had felt on her skin.

Instead of going through the line to grab her food, she did an about-face and walked out of the cafeteria. They'd cleared Hydra out of Boston. She and Steve hadn’t had any problems when they'd gone to lunch. She couldn't live her life in constant fear inside Tony Stark's phallus of a building. Plus, she was feeling reckless. Wouldn't it just serve Bucky right if she got snapped up by Hydra? Wouldn't that just be the icing on the fucking cake if he had nothing to do with any danger to her? That being with her or dumping her had no bearing on Hydra’s motives.

She took the stairs to the lobby and walked right out the front door like it was nothing. The setting sun wasn't visible, but she could feel the energy of an early spring evening. The breeze felt like heaven on her bare arms. Not knowing what she wanted to eat or where she'd end up, Darcy started walking down the sidewalk. After criss-crossing the blocks, doubling back and heading off in other directions, she found herself starving and probably a mile away from home. And she felt better than she had since... well, since that night with Bucky. It was the first time she thought maybe she could get through this and forget about him.

There was an Indian place three blocks away that had the best aloo palak and she was hungry enough to eat two orders with a plate of naan. Her watch said was seven-thirty, which was no surprise because the streetlights were already on.

"Ma'am? Ma'am? Excuse me?"

Darcy looked up to see a woman maybe a couple years younger than her in a pencil skirt and white blouse. "Me?" she asked.

The woman nodded and crossed the five yards between them. She stopped a couple feet away, looking apologetic. "I'm so sorry, but I'm lost. I've never been to New York City before. Do you know where this is?" The woman offered her a crumbled piece of notebook paper.

Darcy took it and looked down at the scribble. She only had time to wonder why the letters looked so strange—maybe Russian—before she felt a sharp prick on the bicep of her left arm.

"What?" Darcy said, looking up at the woman, who was pulling her hand away, some sort of needle tucked into her palm.

A second ticked by and she knew she was in trouble. A rouse, drugs in a needle, and she was so stupid. And she wished she'd never even thought about getting back at Bucky by offering herself up to Hydra like this. It had been stupid and selfish.

Darcy turned to run. After two stumbling steps, she went down onto one knee, the world blurring and her joints feeling like they wouldn't bend properly "Oh my goodness," the woman said, coming up behind her. "Are you okay, honey? Let me help you get back to your apartment."

Damn, she was good. Darcy blinked and wondered why her eyelids were staying closed for so long. When she opened her eyes again a man was in front of her. He looked like bad news—shaved head, all in black,including those tactical pants Bucky favored when he was on missions. He said something in another language—Russian again?—to the woman.

The next time she blinked she didn't open her eyes back up. Everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I feel bad that you got zero Bucky in this chapter, I will probably post the next chapter tonight after work.
> 
> The mood of this fic was heavily influenced by music I was listening to at the time. I've found that music almost always helps me write or makes my writing better. So, I compiled a list of fourteen songs as the "soundtrack" to this piece of fiction for any of you music lovers who care to listen.
> 
> [YOU CAN VIEW THE PLAYLIST HERE.](http://imgur.com/8Jp4T1p)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted Chapter 12 this morning. If you haven't already done so, I suggest you read it before proceeding.

> _“And they told me to care when trying to fix your heart. It’s unfair. I’m trying to fix myself and not care too much about you.” - Marilyn Monroe (Sevdaliza)_

Darcy woke with a raging headache. As she regained consciousness, she realized that her hands were tied behind her back; they were numb and any attempt to move them caused sharp pinpricks as the blood-flow returned. The pain caused tears to sting her eyes. Her feet were tied as well. A quick glance around her surroundings showed her a small room, devoid of furniture with a thick layer of dust covering the concrete floor. She was lying on her side in the far corner of the room. Darcy struggled to sit up, her body aching from the ropes around her limbs and the awkward position they'd left her in.

Finally pushing herself up enough to sit with her back braced against the wall closest to her, she started going through her options. She regretted leaving her phoned behind, but it wasn’t like she could use it with her hands bound behind her back. How long had she been here? More than hour, less than a day? She had to assume that Tony and company didn't know she'd left the Tower. Or if they knew she was gone now, they may not have known she'd been picked up by Hydra. So, she couldn't count on a speedy rescue.

Stupid, stupid stupid. She should have never played this reckless little game. She hadn't really thought they'd find her in a city full of people. She was no one, nothing. Just some girl who happened to get caught up in something she had no business being part of.

The hollow sound of a lock clicking came from the metal door across the room. It opened to reveal two men in black pants and white shirts. They walked over and each grabbed an arm. Darcy struggled, throwing her weight into them to get some sort of purchase, some opportunity to run out the door. They weren't Bucky strong, but they were certainly stronger than her and her pathetic attempts were shut down. If only Steve and Bucky had told her how to escape from too-tight restraints and beat up two goons with necks thicker than her thighs.

One of the men said something to the other in Russian. She lashed out like an animal to try and bite the nose of the man closest to her. All it got her was a fist to the head. She reeled back, only upright because the second man was holding her arm. Her assailant brought his elbow down on her head, but she hardly felt the blow, passing out immediately.

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She came to in a larger room, the sharp sound of metal against metal pulling her out of unconsciousness. That and several voices, all speaking in Russian. Except for one familiar voice that stopped her heart. Darcy curled into herself and pushed up off the floor, her limbs untied but stiff with disuse and aching from the cold concrete. Her head was throbbing with pain. She got to her knees and looked around for _him_. He was a few yards away in the doorway of an adjoining room. The door was blocked by a thick sheet of what looked like glass but probably was something much heavier duty since Bucky's left fist just slammed into it, leaving only a few white chipped spots where his knuckles had been.

His eyes were feral, wild, dangerous. Darcy's drug and sleep-addled mind couldn't quite put the pieces together. He hit the glass again, chipping away a few more insignificant pieces. Darcy could hear yelling in Russian from another room behind her, but couldn't seem to turn away from Bucky. He looked desperate, his eyes red-rimmed as he slammed his left fist into the glass.

Darcy stumbled to her feet to go to him. That's when she heard someone behind her speaking. She turned to see him and found three men standing near a back exit to the room. The one in the middle held a book with a red and black leather cover. The other two men were armed to the teeth with guns and knives and anything a bad guy could want. The man in the middle gave her a wicked smile, obviously enjoying this little game. “Good, you’re awake,” he said in a heavily accented voice. “We want to test his ability to follow directions and our informant tells us he has a soft spot for you.”

Bucky let out a scream that sound like it was a mixture of pure rage and desperation. He was punching the glass repeatedly in the same spot, each hit reverberating in the empty room. Darcy wondered if he was hurting himself. She looked back at the three men and then to Bucky behind the glass.

“What informant?” she asked, feeling confused and dumb.

“Your date. He didn’t perform well in that task, but the information he provided us on the Asset has proven invaluable.”

Suddenly the fog in her mind cleared and she realized what was happening. They had the book that held the words which would send him back into whatever trance state they'd planted in his brain. He'd come to help her, to save her, and he'd fallen into the trap. Darcy turned back to the men and lunged forward, grabbing for the book. The thug on the left brought the butt of his rifle up and smashed it into the center of her chest before she could even get close enough to touch the damn thing.

The man with the book flipped it open and read off two words. She was struggling to pull in a breath and remain upright. Bucky was screaming threats of death at them if they dared touch her again. She still couldn't breath easily when another word was said.

Bucky's gaze locked with hers. "You have to run," he told her through the glass.

Even if she'd been able to run through the wall of men behind her, she knew she couldn't leave him here like this. "You can fight it," she said after sucking in her first full breath since being hit.

"I can't. You have to run as soon as you get the chance." He hit the glass again. His efforts had chipped away some of the barrier, but it would probably take him a good two minutes of punching to break through completely.

The man with the book said two more words. They sounded evil and hateful, but that was probably just because she knew they could take Bucky away from her, away from himself.

Three more words and Bucky’s desperation was palpable through the barrier. “You need to run,” he told her again, slamming his fist into the glass. Two final words were read and she watched Bucky's body go motionless and rigid. He lowered his raised arm and shifted until he was facing forward, looking through the damaged glass door with impassive, dead eyes. The change was startling and terrifying. He looked so familiar, but this was someone she didn't know at all.

The sudden silence in the room allowed her to hear crashing and gun fire in another area of the building not far from them. If it was the cavalry, then they better move fast.

The man with the book said something addressed to Bucky and Bucky replied in Russian. His voice was devoid of all the emotion he'd shown only seconds earlier. Jerkwad with the book smiled and nodded at a minion who hit a button on the wall behind them. The barrier between her and Bucky clicked open. They were standing less than ten feet from one another.

"Detain her," jerkwad told Bucky. "If she resists, then kill her." He flashed Darcy that wicked grin again, obviously saying the orders in English so she knew exactly what was coming.

Darcy’s back was to Bucky. "Fuck you, dude!" she told her captor. "He's my friend, he won't do what you're saying." She didn't really believe what she'd said because she could already hear Bucky moving towards her with sure, steady steps.

"Yes, that's what this little exercise is about. If he'll follow our instructions against _you_ then his programming is still intact."

"Well, he..." Darcy didn't get a chance to finish her thought because Bucky's arms wrapped like steel bands around her stomach. His chest was pressed up against her back and his smooth, unaffected breath was steady against her ear.

Her mind tripped back to that morning not so long ago in the gym when he'd been playing the role of assailant. Now he was living that role. She closed her eyes, remembering all those moves that Steve had drilled into her brain and that she'd repeated on Bucky several times. Drop, hit, stomp, lift. But she knew none of it would work now. He was a superhuman and there was no way little old Darcy was getting loose, especially if he was in Winter Soldier mode.

His body felt so familiar even if his grip was too tight, too rough. She wanted to cry, but shock prevented the tears from forming. Darcy squeezed her eyes shut tight and said, "Don't you dare make me punch you in the balls, Bucky. I'm in fucking love with you. I fucking refuse, dude."

She'd not expected it to have any effect on him whatsoever. It had popped out of her mouth in a moment of desperation and sadness. Except her words seemed to have hit home. She felt his grip go slack enough that she turned in his arms.

"Bucky?" she asked.

"Darcy," he said back, his eyes wide and wild, terrified.

She could hear a gun being cocked behind her. It really was a chilling sound when the gun wasn't in your hand. Bucky was still rooted to the spot, looking torn and tortured. His red-rimmed eyes had a lost look to them, like there was something he knew he needed to understand, but he just couldn't seem to grasp it.

Darcy glanced down and saw the gun strapped against his thigh. It looked like the same gun he'd let her shoot a few days before. The second her hand touched it, she heard the crack of a gun and an almost immediate metallic clang. Bucky's left arm was raised and held up behind the back of her head. She didn't need to turn around to know what had happened. One of the men behind her had fired a shot at the back of her head and the hero of her life had deflected the bullet. He didn't even look like it had been a conscious thought, just instinct to protect her.

She was standing toe to toe with him, her heart galloping and waiting for the next shot. The grip of the gun strapped to Bucky's thigh was so close to her hand. Getting it would be awkward because the holster was designed to allow the gun to be pulled back and up, not forward and up. Two of the men behind her were arguing. One second, two seconds. If she was going to do something, she needed to do it now. Bucky's eyes were still alternating between confused and vacant.

"I'm taking your gun," she whispered when she caught his gaze with her own.

"Doll," he whispered back. He opened his mouth to say something else, but nothing came out. It was like he'd lost his train of thought.

Darcy tried to turn her body into him and lift the gun out of the holster without anyone seeing. After a moment of fumbling, she was able to get the gun out and in her hand. She turned, pressing her back against Bucky's chest for support. His right hand came up to rest on her hip like it was just muscle memory, not a decision he'd made.

The gun was pressed against her leg, half-hidden behind her thigh. The three thugs were in her line of sight, the man with the book apparently reprimanding the gunman who'd fired the single shot at her head. The other man was watching Bucky, not her. Of course. He was the more dangerous person by far. Except he wasn't the one with the gun.

Darcy's hand was trembling and she was afraid that she'd just hit the walls over their heads if she got up the nerve to shoot. All told, it was probably only seconds between the moment she turned around and the moment the two men stopped arguing and jerkwad saw the gun she was hiding behind her leg. His eyes went wide and he barked out an order in Russian. All she saw was one rifle raising its muzzle to point at her. She lifted the gun, pointed at the guard's torso and fired. She swung the gun to the other guard and pulled the trigger just as he had managed to get his gun aimed at her. Her shot hit home, but his never left the rifle.

And then everything happened at once. The door behind the men swung open to reveal more bodies in black and red gear. Jerkwad with the book pulled out a pistol from his pocket and leveled it at her face, barking another order at Bucky this time. And then she felt Bucky's hand on her hip shove her to the floor. She hit the concrete hard, a sharp pain shooting up the arm she'd held out to catch herself. There wasn't time to think about it because the sound of gunshots echoed in the room.

Trying to crawl over to the corner, she dared a glance up and saw Bucky advancing toward the armed men, each movement efficient and effortless. He spun to avoid bullets, fists, and legs. And what he couldn't avoid, he deflected easily with his left arm. It only took him a moment to disable someone once he got close enough. She suspected most of them on the floor were dead. When he lifted a gun off one of the men, she _knew_ they were dead because he shot each of them in the head, including the two men she'd shot.

And then he turned back to her, his eyes almost feral. Darcy pushed herself up into a seated position. "Hi," she whispered, unsure where his head was at.

"Stay down. Don't go with anyone but Steve," he said.

"Stay with me," she replied, her voice quivering at the prospect of being left alone without his protection.

He closed his eyes and turned his head away from her. After a few seconds of silence, he opened his eyes again and took a few steps closer. He kicked a foot out and sent the gun she'd pulled from his holster across the floor to her. "I don't trust myself," he said. "Wait for Steve."

And then he was gone, presumably heading toward the fighting. The crack of gunfire and things being smashed was getting closer. Darcy grabbed the gun, noticing the blood dripping from her arm. She'd scraped it against the concrete floor when'd he'd pushed her out of the line of fire. Kneeling in the corner with the gun clutched in her hand, she focused her eyes on the doorway and tried not to think about being surrounded by dead bodies. She could hear orders being called out in Russian in the hallway, but no one ever entered.

The pad of her finger was on the trigger. She gave a shaky laugh and pulled it away to lay it alongside the trigger guard. Like Bucky had taught her. She felt like she'd felt after the incident on the street weeks ago, except times ten. Her brain was shut off and it was hard to hold anything in it other than simple observations. Observations like how a thin rivulet of blood was creeping across the floor toward her. In less than a minute, it would soak into her pants. That would fucking suck.

"Darcy? Darcy, are you okay?"

She looked up to see Steve in his Captain America getup standing in the door. "Hi, Cap," she said, feeling so far removed from the situation it was like she wasn't even in the room.

He held out a hand. "Hey, hey. You need to put the gun down, Darcy,"

She looked down at her hand and saw the gun was trained on him, her finger on the damn trigger again. She dropped the muzzle to the floor and fixed her finger. "Sorry, Bucky said not to put my finger on the trigger until I'm ready to shoot. I keep forgetting."

He stepped over to her and squatted down to look in her eyes. She couldn't seem to meet his gaze, her eyes darting here and there, still trying to watch the door. He'd hooked his shield onto his back and took her face into his hands. "Hey, are you hurt?" he asked, forcing her to look at him.

"What? No. Where's Bucky?"

"Darcy, what happened here?"

"Bucky," she said, as if that was explanation enough. It must have been because Steve didn't question her further on it. Instead, he slipped an arm around her waist and lifted her up to stand beside him.

"We need to get you out of here," he said.

"I want Bucky. Where's Bucky?"

"I don't know. But you're in shock, and this isn't a safe place. You need to come with me."

"Holy macaroni, what happened in here?" Darcy looked up and saw Tony in the doorway, decked out in his Iron Man suit, sans helmet.

"Bucky," Darcy explained again.

"You don't say," Tony replied. "Huh. I thought they were doing the brainwashing thing again. Guess it didn't work."

Steve pulled her across the floor and she stumbled along beside him, wondering why everything seemed like it was happening in the distance. She could feel Steve's arm around her, but it was like he was a mile away. "I took his gun and shot two guys," she admitted.

"Uh, woah, plot twist," Tony said, raising his brows in surprise.

Steve shook his head. "We need to go. Is everything under control here?"

"Yeah, just cleaning up," Tony replied.

Darcy pulled away from Steve when she saw the edge of book binding peeking out from underneath one of the fallen men. Crouching down, she pulled it out and looked at the wordless cover. It was a dark, dirty red with a bold black star in the middle.

"Darcy," Steve warned.

"It's the book. The one they were holding over his head," she explained.

Steve looked from her to the book and then back to her.

"We need to burn it," she explained. "For Bucky. Do you have a lighter?" She turned to Tony. “Can you blow it up?”

"Darcy," Steve said again, his voice had a sharp edge to it now.

She looked up and saw Bucky standing in the doorway. His hair had fallen over his forehead to obscure half his face. He looked like he'd been through hell and was hanging onto his sanity by a thread. "Found it," she told him, extending the book to him across the three or four yards between them.

He stared at her for long moment. His blue eyes looked cold and unfeeling. Steve and Tony were poised to strike, to detain him if he made a move toward her. "Finger off the trigger, doll," Bucky finally said in a gruff voice.

Darcy looked down to see the book in one hand and the gun in the other, her finger curled loosely over the trigger. "Fuck," she muttered under her breath before pulling her finger away and laying it along the side of the gun like he'd taught her. She pushed the book toward him again, waving it in the air. Finally, he stepped forward and accepted it. He kept his eyes on her the entire time, never sparing so much as a glance at the red-covered monstrosity she was handing over.

"Bucky?" Steve asked, edging closer to Darcy.

"I'm fine, punk," Bucky said, still not taking his eyes off Darcy. "Get her home while I clean up here."

"I'm not leaving you here." Steve was using his official Captain America voice and it made Darcy feel like she was in the principal’s office in junior high.

Bucky turned to Steve. "I need you to get her home safely. Everything here is under control."

"Tony can take her," Steve said. Darcy was starting to feel like a bag being passed from one person to the next. If she hadn’t been so numb, she would have been annoyed and letting them know it. She saved herself, thank you very much. Or kinda-sorta saved herself. If you didn't count Bucky doing all the heavy lifting when it came to the thugs with the guns.

"I want you to take her," Bucky snapped back at Steve. "I trust you to get her there safe."

"What the hell am I? A sophomore on his first beer run?" Tony asked, bringing everyone's eyes swinging over to him. His hands were on his hips and he looked as sassy as Darcy felt she should be with the two super soldiers arguing over who was on Darcy duty.

"Tony is capable," Steve told Bucky.

"Tony is Iron Man," Tony said, "With an awesome suit and thrusters and blasters and lasers and all the other er’s. I'm totally capable. I could kick your ass, Barnes."

"Ehhh, I don't know about that," Darcy told Tony. She turned to Bucky and Steve. "Someone give me their keys and I'll drive myself." They just stared at her with blank looks that told her they thought she’d lost her mind. She knew she wasn’t _that_ far gone with shock.

"Come on, Lewis," Tony finally said, "Let's get the hell outta here."

Darcy looked down at the gun in her hand. It felt strange to be carrying it around. "What do I do with this?" she asked the three of them. Steve held out his hand and took it from her. Handing it over, she moved to follow Tony out the door. As she passed by Bucky, she brushed against him. He lifted his right hand and wrapped his fingers around her upper arm, just above the elbow.

She paused, standing beside him. They were facing opposite directions. Bucky dipped his head and his hair fell across his face so she couldn't see his expression. "Thank you for saving me."

"I didn't save you." Just the idea that she had sounded absurd.

“You did,” he said under his breath, tilting his head so he could see her and she could see his eyes. They weren’t so cold now. She remembered the way he’d looked at her when he’d knelt between her legs in her bed and her breath hitched.

“You saved yourself. And me. So, thanks,” Darcy said. She needed to get away from him because if she didn’t, she’d start crying and asking why he’d left her. And then her dignity would be a thing of the past. Darcy pulled away from him and followed Tony out the door.

The building was damaged beyond repair, or at least that’s the way it looked to her. It was an old multi-story monster in an empty industrial park somewhere outside of Trenton, New Jersey. Or at least that’s what Tony had told her. They walked across the crunchy gravel driveway toward three black SUVs. Five agents were standing by the door, cuffing two men and the woman who’d lured her in the first place. Darcy gave them all the evil eye as she passed.

“I could fly you back,” Tony offered.

“No fucking thank you, Tony,” Darcy replied. Suddenly she was exhausted and her legs felt like noodles.

“Yeah, probably not a great idea. Barnes would have my head if I dropped his girlfriend.”

The light-hearted joke made her chest ache and her eyes sting with tears. “I’m not his girlfriend. I’m not his anything.”

“Might wanna tell him that.” Tony opened one of the passenger doors for her and motioned for her to get inside. After she’d climbed in and buckled up, he stood in the doorway with hands on the frame of the vehicle. “Did he go all assassin-chic back there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“How’d you get him back?”

Darcy’s laugh was bitter. “I don’t know. I told him I didn’t want to punch him in the balls. I think he just snapped out of it on his own.”

“Huh,” Tony said. He shut the door and walked around to the passenger side. The fit behind the steering wheel was tight with his suit on, but he made it work. As they pulled out onto the crumbling asphalt road, he added, “I think he likes you more than you think he does, kiddo.”

“Doesn’t feel that way,” she mumbled, curling into herself and shifting her body to look out the side window.

Tony didn’t respond. They drove for over two hours in silence. She couldn’t stop her hands from trembling for the first thirty minutes. And when the adrenaline pumping through her system was finally gone, she crashed and slept the rest of the way. Tony poked her arm and woke her after he’d pulled into the underground garage. Being so un-Tony-like, he escorted her upstairs and had a woman named Anna patch up her scraped and bruised arm. There was a purple spot just right of center on her chest where one of those dicks had slammed his gun into her. And she had a mild concussion. After determining those were her only injuries, Anna handed her some pills in a small container and Tony dropped her off at her apartment.

“I’m going to go make sure it’s all under control. You gonna be okay, Lewis?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Her head was starting to pound and those pills were looking pretty good.

“Call me if you need anything. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said before closing her door and standing in the foyer of her dark apartment. She’d lost all concept of time. It had been light when they left Trenton. It was dark now, though. The best she could guess, she’d been out all night and most of the day before the team had found her about twenty-four hours after she’d been abducted.

Darcy took two steps into her apartment and crumpled to the floor. Curling into a ball, she let herself cry. Her body shook with the messy, violent sobs. She didn’t know why she was crying. Or maybe there were too many things to cry about. What had happened and all the stress and fear of the ordeal, of course. Bucky and what a mess their non-existent relationship was. Loneliness, isolation, fear, all that. It was overwhelming.

She wasn’t sure how long she laid on the floor like a nutcase, but when her hip started hurting from the tile-covered foyer, she crawled over to the living room and used the arm of the sofa to push herself onto her feet. After standing there trying to decide if she wanted to go to bed immediately or take a shower, she decided on washing the dirt and grime off.

The shower was hot and necessary. She felt more human when she pulled on a pair of cotton shorts that barely covered her ass and an old T-shirt. Maybe if she had a cup of chamomile tea and one of the pills she could sleep through the night without horrible fucking dreams.

Darcy microwaved some water and dropped a teabag into the mug. Before she could bring the drink to her lips for a sip, there was a knock at her door. She jumped, spilling half the hot water all over the counter. With shaking hands, she mopped it up with a dish towel and approached the door with caution. Her nerves were shot and even though she was in a guarded fortress and her visitor was probably Tony checking on her again, she wasn’t taking any chances.

A peek through the peephole revealed someone other than Tony, though. It was Bucky.


	14. Chapter 14

> _“Tell me when I have to go and then love me there. Love me in whatever way.” - Love Me In Whatever Way (James Blake)_

After how cold he'd been earlier that evening, she didn't expect to see him at all. She'd assumed he was done with her and moving on with his fucked up life. He hadn't even offered to take her home after everything she'd been through. Then again, she was the one who’d left the Tower. She was the one who’d gotten herself kidnapped. She was the reason he’d been anywhere near the book and those who wanted to use it against him. Maybe he blamed her. Maybe that's why he was standing outside her door.

Darcy opened up and stood there in the doorway with her hand on the knob. His face was unreadable like it had been when he was trying to arrange for her ride back home. They'd slept together and he couldn't even take her home after he'd saved her ass.

"Hi," Bucky said softly. His arms were hanging limp at his sides and the book was clutched in his right hand. She'd been so wrapped up in her own ideas about how he was there to bitch at her for not following his instructions that she'd missed those details, missed how tired he look underneath that blank face, behind those cold eyes.

"I'm sorry I left the Tower," she said.

"Darcy, don't. Nothing is your fault. None of it."

She'd already opened her mouth to plead her case, that she hadn't intended to put him in harm’s way, but snapped it shut when she heard his response. "They almost got you because of me,”she said instead.

Bucky shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Can I come in? I know I don't deserve to come in, but can I?"

She stepped back and tried not to inhale too deeply when he passed by her. He smelled a little sweaty, but mostly he smelled like the man who had let her fall asleep on top of him a few nights back. It felt like that had happened in a different lifetime.

"Why do you still have the book? You should have destroyed it," she said, following him into her apartment. He laid it on the island counter and rested his forearms on either side of it, curling his upper body over the marble and dropping his head. He looked so _tired_.

"You promised me we'd burn it together," he murmured.

"That was before..." She trailed off, not able to put into words exactly what had happened. She didn't even really know. Maybe before their friendship crashed into her bed. Before he'd fled the scene.

"Before I ran," he offered.

"Before you broke my heart," she corrected.

His shoulders curled in toward his head and his forehead dropped closer to the countertop. She couldn't see his face, only the profile of his body bent over her kitchen island. His disheveled brown hair hid his features. She stood there for several long seconds waiting on him to reply, to say something, anything. He didn't.

Finally, she said, "Look, never mind. You didn't ask me to feel that way. That's my problem. I just... it felt like you didn't care at all and it made me feel like I was worthless. That I didn't matter as long as you were doing what was best for you. And if cutting me out is what you've got to do, then... then okay, whatever. I mean, it's not like it hasn't happened to me before. I just felt like I deserved an explanation. A thanks-for-helping-me-get-over-my-intimacy-issues."

He pushed off the counter and turned to her. They were only a few feet apart in the dimly-lit kitchen. The only illumination came from the light in the range hood above the stove. His face was mostly in shadow. "That's not... Doll, that's not what happened."

"It _is_ what happened. Or at least what happened to me. We were friends— _good_ friends, by the way—and then you started saying things that made me think I had a chance with you, that made me feel like I meant something to you. And so I took a risk and sex happened, and it was amazing—like really fucking mind-melting. And then you were gone. No note, no explanation, no sorry, no nothing. Just gone like I didn't even deserve to know what happened in your head."

"Doll..."

"No, no _doll_. You left me. You hid in your room for days after sleeping with me. And all I could do was think that the sex was horrible for you or that you didn't want that kind of relationship with me or that you were scared."

"I was scared," he confirmed.

"So was I!" she said, her voice rising to an almost shrill pitch. Darcy winced and took a shaky breath. "So was I. You think I fall in love with stupid jerks every week?" He opened his mouth to say something, but she threw a hand up to stop him and continued. "What hurt the most was that I thought you cared enough about me to at least talk to me about it, even if you felt like we'd made a mistake."

"It wasn't a mistake." His voice was soft, but firm, confident.

"Feels that way now. You wouldn't even bring me home tonight. After everything that happened. I mean, I know it's all my fault and you were mad at me, but I wanted you to..."

"Darcy, I wasn't mad at you," he interrupted. "What happened isn't your fault. I was in a bad place earlier. I didn't want you to see that."

"See what? See you driving me back here while I was trying to get over the shock and the drugs they pumped into me?"

"See me doing what they trained me for. See me killing. See me turned into nothing but a fucking weapon." He stepped forward and she could see unshed tears glistening in his eyes.

"Too late, buddy. I saw all that. And you know what? It didn't change a goddamn thing." She wished she didn't sound so bitter, so argumentative, as she spit out the words like she wanted them to hurt him.

"Why? Why don't you think I'm a monster?"

She felt exhaustion hit her hard. It had been a long day or two and this conversation was taking it out of her. "Because you're not. I wouldn't change a single thing except for you fucking me and running."

"Don't call it that," he snapped, turning away from her.

"Call it what?"

"Fucking. We didn't fuck." His back was to her, his shoulders curled in like he was a wounded animal.

"That's funny because it felt that way the next morning when I was changing my sheets and washing you off me. Felt like a one-night-stand."

Bucky turned around and stepped closer, still leaving three feet of space between them. She could see him well now. She could see the sadness and regret in his blue eyes, the thin line of his mouth, the tension in his shoulders and arms. "Doll, I'm sorry. I don't know how to tell you how sorry. I didn't think..." He trailed off and then started again. "I didn't think about how it would be for you. I just needed to get away. I wanted you too much, and I felt like I couldn't do that to you. You deserve better than me and all the shit that comes along with me. Like what happened to you yesterday. That's on me. That's my fault."

"Bullshit, Mr. Martyr. They were after me before we were even a thing. They were trying to use me against Tony or the Avengers in general. So give it up and tell me the truth."

He watched her, his eyes taking in her face. Darcy almost turned away from the intensity of his gaze. Finally, he said, "I don't know how to do this. How to be in love with someone. I want something better for you than me. I'm a mind-fucked murderer who runs off at the drop of a hat to do what I do best—kill people."

"Let me rephrase that for you, Bucky. You're a member of the Avengers who lived through hell and came out the other end determined to help people and do good. You’ve saved my life twice already. How could I _possibly_ do better than you?"

The corner of his mouth lifted up in a tired half-smile. "You got a real fucked up view of the world, doll."

"Said the pot to the kettle. Stop trying to torture yourself like you deserve it." She sighed. "Also, can you please stop ignoring me? It hurts."

After a long moment, he said, "I'll do whatever you want me to do, Darcy."

She smiled, but it probably looked sad and tired and pathetic. "Good. Burn that fucking book. It's creeping me out."

He looked behind him at the book on the counter. "I can't just light it on fire right there.”

Darcy walked over to the cabinet by the stove and pulled out a large soup pot. She'd never used it and suspected she never would. "You got a light?" she asked, putting on it on the stovetop.

"Yeah, and lighter fluid. Was hoping you’d forgive me enough to let us do this. Together." He walked over to stand beside her and handed over the book.

She reluctantly took it from him. It was so unassuming—just a book. "You can look. Inside," he told her.

She glanced up into his face and saw naked trust there. The book controlled him, and he was giving her permission to look. Instead, Darcy dropped it into the pot and held her hand out for the lighter fluid. As she sprayed it over the cover, she said, "I don't need to look. It's a stupid book that doesn't matter anymore. You want to do the honors?"

He was holding the lighter in his hand. After a moment's consideration, he flicked the wheel and ignited it. Bucky held the lighter to the corner of the book and they both watched it lick at the book. The cover whooshed into flames.

Darcy stood there beside him and watched the edges of the book curl in and the flames start licking at the pages inside. She stepped back and hoisted herself up onto the island, sitting there with her legs dangling so she could watch the proverbial hatchet over his head burn to ash on her stovetop. "How does it feel?" she asked when he turned to look at her.

"Strange. Good. But it’s not really over."

“What do you mean?”

“There could be copies. Hydra operatives could have memorized the triggers. This doesn’t mean I’m safe.”

“You’re safe,” she replied in a voice that brooked no argument. She patted the counter next to her. "Come on. Take a load off. You look as tired as I feel."

Not needing to be told twice, Bucky lifted himself up onto the counter and sat beside her. They were close, his thigh pressed against hers and his right shoulder bumping into hers when he shifted to get comfortable. She sat there next to him and watched the flames licking at the air above her pot. Bucky was bent over, his forearms resting on his knees. She wanted to reach over to run her hand up his back, but she didn’t know how welcome her touch would be.

“You get hurt?” he asked.

Darcy bent her arm at the elbow to show the bandage along it. “Just this and a bruise on my chest from that dick with a gun. Nothing that bad.”

“I’m sorry, doll,” he said looking down at the floor.

She shrugged. “Could have been worse. I think I got off pretty easy.”

After a long moment of silence, he turned his head and looked back at her. “Thank you again for breaking their hold on me back there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That wasn’t me who grabbed you. Well, it was, but it wasn’t.”

“Yeah, I get it,” she said. “Winter Soldier mode and all. What did I do to change anything? I thought you snapped out of it on your own.”

“No, I don’t just snap out of it like that. When I grabbed you from behind... it felt off, like I knew you. I think that’s because I was flashing back to us in the gym a few days ago. Then you said my name and told me... you said...”

Yeah. _That_. She’d said _that_. Might as well come clean; it wasn’t like he didn’t already know. “That I’m in love with you,” she said, helping him.

She saw him swallow, like he had a lump in his throat as big as the one in hers. “Yeah,” Bucky said. “It was a shock.”

Darcy laughed softly. “You’re telling _me_.”

“Still couldn’t do anything, though. I just remember being so confused. They were telling me to detain you, kill you if I had to. Those were my orders. But I knew I couldn’t follow them. Because you were... Darcy.”

“That’s sweet, you jerk. So, it’s good to know that if you go all wacky again, I can just threaten to hit you in the nuts and tell you that I love you.”

“Do you? Still?”

“What? Want to punch your balls?”

His lips twitched. “No, the other thing.”

“Oh. What do you mean, _still_? I’ve known you for three months. You’re asking like we’ve been doing this dance for years. Still?”

“I acted like a monster in front of you.”

Darcy smiled. “ _Actually_ , in hindsight that whole thing was kinda hot. At the time it was hella scary, but now... Well, I might be a little bit turned on that you’re on my side. Like if some dude is rude to me, I can be like, ‘Hey, I know Bucky Barnes and he’ll totally kick your ass if I tell him to because he likes me.’”

He gave her a small smile back and dropped his head to stare at the floor between his dangling feet. “You’re ridiculous. And I don’t deserve you.” He turned his head to look back at her again. “You did a good job with my gun.”

Darcy cringed. “Did I even hit them?”

He nodded. “You hit them both. One in the chest and the other in the stomach.”

“Did I...”

“No,” Bucky said, knowing exactly what she was asking without her having to voice it. “I killed them with head shots.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. “I mean, I guess I don’t know how I feel about killing people. If it was me or them… Or you or them, then... then it’d be them.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It would be them. But I hope that never happens again. I thought I was going to lose my mind when we found out you were missing.”

“Honestly, I didn’t know if you’d even care.”

“You have to know I cared, doll. I never stopped caring.”

“How did you guys find out?”

“Jarvis. About thirty minutes after you left, he notified Tony. We searched and searched, but couldn’t find you. Tried tracking your cell, but you left it here.”

Darcy said, “I’m sorry I caused trouble. I just really... I wanted to get away and get some fresh air. Alone. I was kinda sad.”

“Like I said, this was all my fault. You wouldn’t have been out there if I hadn’t acted like an asshole.”

The fire crackled and she heard the contents of the pot shift as the book started falling apart into ash. “Steve said you were sad, too.”

He groaned. “That punk can’t mind his own business.”

Darcy laughed softly. After a moment of silence she said, “Are we okay? Friends?”

He sat up and moved his right arm behind her, pressing his palm on the countertop. “We’re okay,” he agreed. “Friends, unless...”

“Unless what?” she asked when he didn’t finish his thought.

“Unless you’re crazy and want to forgive me. Unless you’re extra crazy and still think you’re in love with me.”

“What then? You gonna run out of here like last time?”

“Was thinking about taking you to bed,” he murmured, turning his head to look down at her. His lips were inches from hers. “If you’re... If you want, I mean...” He was stumbling over his words, nervous and awkward.

“Only if you stay the night and have breakfast with me in the morning,” Darcy said, putting him out of his misery.

“That’s all I have to agree to for you to forgive me?” His voice was soft and she couldn’t stop looking at the way his full lips moved with each word.

Darcy wanted to kiss him so badly, but instead she said, “That will require a little more groveling and one—no, two—orgasms."

He chuckled softly. "Go easy on me. I'm outta practice."

Darcy felt like this was a dream. He was here beside her and laughing at her jokes, making some of his own even. Her heart felt like it was beating in her throat. What a rollercoaster. "Bullshit," she said, "you could meet those requirements with one hand tied behind your back."

"You got a lot of faith in me."

"That's ‘cause you're my hero."

He brushed his nose over her hair. "Yours, huh?"

"Better be if you're trying to charm me into forgiving you and letting you get me naked again."

"I was a fool for ever thinking that I could decide what was best for you and for thinking I could be okay without seeing you every day. I'm yours if you'll so graciously forgive my sorry ass." He said it all with that little grin on his sinful lips.

She wanted to kiss him and beg him to come to bed with her. But before they got to that, she said, "And? You forgot something."

He smiled, flashing his teeth and making her want to swoon. "And I promise to give you two orgasms. Tonight. And more tomorrow."

Darcy threw her head back and laughed. "Not what I was looking for, but I'll take it."

Bucky scooted off the counter and moved to stand in front of her, working himself between her knees. His hands grabbed her hips and pulled her forward so her ass was sitting on the edge of the island and he was fully between her legs. "What were you looking for?" he asked.

"That you won't leave me."

He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her chest. She took the opportunity to run her fingers through his hair. "I won't leave you," he whispered against the bare skin of her chest just above the worn neckline of her old shirt.

Bucky pulled her tighter, his arms crossing over her back and his face buried in the crook of her neck where it met her shoulder. He was warm and gentle and _there_. The puffs of his breath, rapid because he was just as wound-up as her, were making goosebumps form on the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and ran her fingertips up and down his spine. The vest and shirt underneath prevented her from touching his skin like she really wanted to do.

“For a bad-ass assassin, you give really good hugs,” she whispered, running her fingers through his hair, detangling it as she went.

He squeezed her a little closer and pressed an open-mouthed kiss just behind her ear. The kiss made that spot between her thighs throb like he’d sent an electric impulse through her body right down there.

Bucky placed another kiss further down her neck and then another on her jaw. “You’re getting real good with this intimacy thing. I’ve taught you well,” she muttered, trying to cool the fire in her body before she came on the counter, fully clothed.

“You’re the only one I could touch like this. You’re the only one who feels this way,” he whispered in her ear. The scratch of his stubble on her cheek felt so ridiculously good. It was overwhelming when coupled with his arms locked tight around her back and his body fitted snugly between her open legs.

Darcy took his face between her hands and pulled it back so she could see him. He looked drunk and she knew it wasn’t on alcohol. “This feels like the best dream I’ve ever had,” she told him.

He lifted his chin and kissed her softly. She dragged her fingertips across the beginnings of the beard on his jaw and he shivered as he shifted his hips more firmly into her, pulling her until she was barely seated on the counter. “I’m sorry for running, doll. I learned my lesson,” he whispered, his lips brushing against her own.

“What did you learn?”

“That I’m miserable without you.”

“And that I’m safer with you,” she added. After a moment she also said, “And that I can kinda take care of myself. I mean, I shot two guys.”

His laugh was breathy and she caught a flash of his teeth as he pulled back and grabbed her shirt, pulling it over her head. “Is it bad I thought that was a little sexy?” he asked, before dipping his head down to take her left nipple into his mouth. His right hand was buried in her hair and the left prosthetic hand was pressed into the small of her back.

“How much do you remember?” she asked between labored breaths.

“All of it,” he said when he moved to her other nipple, flicking it with the tip of his tongue. “You taking my gun and leaning back into my chest. Feeling like you were going to save us both.” His mouth closed over her breast, causing her to gasp.

“I didn’t,” she protested.

He ran his tongue up her breastbone, lingering on the bruise with a light touch. “You did,” he replied before he claimed her mouth and slipped his tongue between her lips. The kiss was bordering on filthy with the way he was fucking her mouth with his tongue. Darcy felt like the coil in her belly was wound so tight she could come at any moment.

“I think we need to go to bed now,” she said against his lips when he pulled back for a breath.

“I’m working on your first orgasm,” he told her, using both hands to push her shoulders back. She couldn’t fight him and didn’t really want to, so she ended up on her back, her head hanging off the opposite side of the island. She felt both boneless and vibrating with energy, but couldn’t seem to lift her head up to see what he was doing. Turns out, she didn’t need to look. She could feel his fingers curl beneath the waistband of her shorts and panties. Both slid down her legs and then his shoulders were wedged between her knees, holding them apart.

Darcy did look up then to see him wet his lips like he was really looking forward to what was about to happen. “Oh, fuck,” she muttered, raising a shaky hand to cover her face half in embarrassment and half in shock over the intensity.

Bucky bent over her, sliding her legs over his shoulders, her knees hooked there and his arms wrapped around her thighs. “This is for all those times you teased me by sitting on the counter by the coffee maker, making me want to do this to you,” he said. She lifted her head just in time to see him dip down and lap at her. Less than an hour ago she was convinced he wanted nothing to do with her and now he had her laid out on her kitchen counter while he buried his tongue deep inside her. What a fucking day.

“Left or right,” he asked, his lips brushing over her clit.

“What?” she asked on an exhale, looking down at him between her legs.

“What hand do you want me to use.”

“Jesus, Bucky. I don’t... I can’t think...” He pressed his mouth over her clit and nudged it with his tongue. “Oh, god, I can’t think when you do that.”

“Right,” he decided, shifting so he could slide the middle finger of his flesh hand inside her. “Haven’t felt how tight you are with this one.”

His gruff, sexy voice coupled with his tongue on her clit and his index finger joining the middle finger made her arch her back on the counter and dig her heels into him. She could hear herself moan, but couldn’t control the filthy noises tumbling over her lips. He pressed his fingers deep inside twisting and curling as he went. “Come for me, doll,” he whispered before sucking her clit between his lips. The edges of his upper teeth just barely grazed it and that set her off.

She used her feet on his back to lift her hips up off the counter, one hand pressed into the back of his head to hold his face between her legs. Her orgasm was swift and tore through her like a freight train. As she came back down to reality, her chest rising and falling rapidly, she looked down at him.

Bucky flashed her a smile, the white of his teeth visible even in the dark. “One down,” he told her.

Laughing, Darcy let go of his hair and covered her face with both her hands. “I don’t know if I can handle a second one.”

“Oh, no,” he said, pulling her ass to the edge of the counter and slipping his arms behind her back to help her suddenly boneless body sit back up. “Our deal was two tonight.”

“Don’t be so cocky,” she told him. “I thought you were out of practice.”

“Apparently it really _is_ like riding a bike,” he replied, bending forward and throwing her over his shoulder.

She squeaked and fisted her hands into the loose buckles on his vest. The metal fingers of his left hand were curled around her upper thigh, close to brushing against the lips of her pussy as he carried her into her bedroom. “You opposed to letting me walk into my own bedroom?” she sassed him, letting go of his vest and sinking her fingers into his perfect ass as she grabbed a handful of it.

“You make it hard for me to wait,” he said, dumping her in the middle of the bed. She bounced twice before pushing herself up on her elbows to watch him undress. He toed off his boots and socks. The vest was unbuckled and shrugged off next, followed shortly by the skin-tight lycra shirt that didn’t have a left sleeve.

“You are so fucking hot,” Darcy said, not even realizing that her thoughts had come out her mouth in the form of words.

Bucky chuckled and unbuckled his belt.

“Wait,” she said, pushing herself up more and scooting to the foot of the bed to sit in front of him. He’d frozen with his hands on his zipper. “Am I allowed to touch you this time?”

She could see his jaw flex and tighten at her question. “You can do whatever you want to me, doll.” His voice was rough, breathy.

Tentatively, she reached out and rested her fingers on top of his. He dropped his hands and let her unbutton and unzip him. A shift of his hips and legs made the pants drop to the floor around his ankles. He was in a pair of dark grey boxer-briefs that hugged those thighs and made them look obscene. Well, that wasn’t the only obscene thing. The swell of his cock was pointing up to the waistband and very visible underneath the thin cotton. And it was doing things to her.

Bucky stood there, his hands at his sides and watched her as she let her fingertips trail down the length of him from tip to base. The cotton covering him was soft, but she knew his skin there would be even softer, velvety. Darcy curled her fingers into his waistband and slid the underwear down his legs. His hands were balled into fists. She smiled up at him before looking at his perfect cock as it jutted out from his body.

“Don’t lick your lips like that,” his voice sounded strangled. “I’ll come before you even touch me.”

She hadn’t even realized she’d licked her lips. But she was definitely looking forward to tasting him. Darcy scooted closer to the edge of the bed and laid her hands on the outsides of his thighs, urging him to step forward. He did as she asked, bringing his cock right in front of her face. She saw his hands unclench and curl into fists again. His body was rigid, coiled tight like a spring, vibrating with need. It felt powerful to have control over someone like him.

Looking up at him and locking gazes, she tilted her head and ran her tongue underneath his cock, from the base to the tip. “Fuck,” he growled, his right hand jerking up to cup the back of her head. The sensation turned her on. Darcy squeezed her thighs together and shifted her hips for friction. He caught the tell and curled his fingers into her hair, pulling her back a couple inches. “You’re getting off on this,” he said in wonder.

“Why wouldn’t I?” She tilted her chin up and wrapped a hand around the base of his cock. “Let go so I can...” she trailed off and tried to lean her head forward. His tight grip on her hair held her back for a moment, and then he relaxed and let her take his tip into her mouth. Rolling her tongue over the head of his cock, she collected the salty wetness there. She heard his deep, rumbling groan as she slid her lips down his length until he hit the back of her throat and she was almost gagging. Consciously relaxing the muscles of her throat, she let him slide back a little further before sucking on him as she pulled away.

“Oh, fuck, doll,” his fingers were tight in her hair again. It didn’t hurt, though. He was being so careful and it warmed her heart. Two more passes up and down his cock and he stepped back. “I wanna be inside you,” he said, pushing her back on the bed. She didn’t have a good reason why he shouldn’t be allowed to have what he wanted so she scooted up into the middle. Bucky settled between her legs, his body covering hers as he palmed her breasts with his right hand.

His left hand was flat on the mattress beside her head. Darcy turned her head and kissed his wrist, teasing him with a flick of her tongue. He lowered his body onto her, pressing against her from chest to hips. His cock fitted against her slit, rubbing up against her and building that second orgasm he promised. She gasped and he covered her open mouth with his, kissing her so hard their teeth clicked together. Bucky deepened and softened the kiss, coaxing her tongue into his mouth.

Darcy’s eyes were closed and he was everywhere, surrounding her. His hands on her body, his chest pressed into hers, the outside of his thighs rubbing against the insides of hers as she wrapped her legs around him, his lips sliding off her mouth and along her cheek. His breath was hard and shallow, puffing against the shell of her ear.

The desperation in his touch softened, gentled. “You know I love you back, right?” he breathed out so quietly she wasn’t sure she heard him correctly.

“What?” she asked, dumbly.

“Love you,” he whispered, reaching down to line himself up with her. “I’m in love with you.”

“Oh,” she said. And then he pushed himself home and she was suddenly so deliciously full that she couldn’t think. “Oh, god, Bucky,” she moaned, digging her heels into his ass as he pulled out and pressed back into her. “Don’t stop.”

He laughed softly and peppered kisses over her jaw until he got to her lips again. “I can’t stop. We don’t have your second orgasm yet.”

“Tell me you love me again,” she pleaded, lifting her hips up to meet his next stroke and dragging her nails down his perfect back.

“You’re not playing fair asking at a time like this,” he said with a growl. “But I love you, doll.”

“Love you, too,” she said, tilting her chin up and kissing him. “I’m so close. You feel so good.”

“You. Feel. Better.” He punctuated each word with a sharp snap of his hips. And then he slipped his right hand between them and pressed the pad of his thumb to her clit. The rocking motion created by his thrusts, the fullness of his cock, the way he hit that spot deep inside her, the rough skin on the pad of his thumb, the gleam of his left shoulder above her, the softness of his lips gliding down her neck—all of it pushed her over the edge. She lifted up her hips, one leg hooked over his and the other with it’s foot planted firmly into the mattress. Her back arched as she came so hard she cried out his name.

In the throes of the most intense orgasm of her life, she vaguely registered his body tensing and his strokes faltering. “Darcy,” he said, his voice breaking on her name and cutting through the hazy, pleasurable aftermath of her orgasm. He was pressed so tightly against her, so completely inside her. His eyes squeezed shut as he experienced his own orgasm. When he opened them and looked down at her she saw her jumbled emotions reflected right back at her.

Tenderly, he kissed her lips and used the tip of his left index finger to brush away a strand of her hair that was stuck to her sweaty forehead. “That was...” he trailed off and dipped his head to kiss her again. She loved the way the muscles of his right shoulder moved when he shifted.

“Bomb,” she finished. “That was bomb.”

He laughed and pressed his nose into her hair that was spread out all over her pillow. “That was bomb,” Bucky agreed.

“If you aren’t here in the morning, I will murder you,” she said, running her fingertips down his back.

Bucky slipped himself out of her. The loss of him made her inhale sharply and push out her lower lip in a pout.

He smiled at her, and it was so warm and genuine that it took her breath away. “Don’t pout, doll. I’ll be ready to go again in ten minutes. You’re really going to regret encouraging me.”

“I’m really _not_ going to regret that. Like, at _all_.”

Lying down on his side, he used a hand on her hip to turn her so she was mirroring him, chest to chest, face to face. “I’ll be here in the morning. Promise.”

“And you’ll make us coffee?”

“I will. And I’ll make you come again.”

Darcy felt like she was floating on air with the way he was looking at her. “Okay, but then coffee.”

He chuckled again and slipped a hand up to the back of her head for a sweet, lingering kiss that took her breath away.

“Hey,” she said, pulling back. “Did you steal my panties that night?”

He kissed her again, pulling her leg up to rest on his hip. “Maybe.”

“I liked those. I want ‘em back.”

Bucky chuckled. “Okay. Just as long as I get to keep you.”

 

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, if you are like me and love ALL THE MUSICS, then I would like to say this: If I had to pick a song to play while the credits for this fic rolled, then I would pick Miguel's "coffee" from his _Wildheart_ album. You can listen to it on [YouTube right here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJAelCB8hdY). It's sweet and sexy and dripping with the feeling of first love. And it's called "coffee," so there's that.
> 
> Second, thank you to everyone who has left a comment or sent an encouraging note. I appreciate the lovely thoughts and want to assure you that your encouragement has definitely made me want to write more in this fandom.
> 
> Third, a special thank you to [ChocolateGate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cocosmama/pseuds/ChocolateGate) for acting as a beta and cheerleader for me while I wrote the second half of this fic. And for also not freaking out on me when I was sending her 40+ pages at a time to beta.
> 
> Fourth, music played heavily in the writing of this fic. I helped me keep what I hope is a consistent tone through the entire piece and provided inspiration/food for my muse while working on the first draft. I was into a lot of amazing women who write gorgeous, spacey, sexy, experimental stuff that falls on the more R&B side of the musical tapestry. If you're interested in the songs that were on replay for me, then you can find them listed on [this neat little graphic right here](http://i.imgur.com/8Jp4T1p.jpg). All the songs can be easily found on YouTube.
> 
> Fifth, I am working on a new fic. It is Bucky/Darcy. It will likely be several chapters–-probably about the length of this fic, give or take. However, it has nothing to do with Seventy-One because it is much more canon-compliant and taken from Bucky's POV. I'm starting over to tell you another way these two could have met. As I am only about twenty pages into the first draft, it will be several weeks before you can expect to see anything posted here. I always write the entire first draft before I begin posting it for public consumption. If I could, I'd tell you when to check back, but I don't know how long the first draft will take me and/or how long it will take me to go back through and do my re-writes. I think it is safe to say that it will be more than four weeks away, perhaps as many as eight weeks. I hope everyone will be patient with me. And I hope to see you back here when my second offering is ready for the world. You can find me on Tumblr ([physicalconversation](https://physicalconversation.tumblr.com)), but I have never posted anything. I may start updating or saying bits and bobs about the fic-in-the-works if I can find some comfort level with the platform. Right now I feel like my grandmother trying to work The Facebook.
> 
> And lastly, I hope you enjoyed the ride. I always write what I would want to read, so it's extra special when people poke their heads up to give me a high-five or a pat on the back for a job well done. Until later...


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